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BENJ.  F.  TAYLOR,  LL.D. 


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SUMMER-SAVORY, 


GLEANED  FROM  RURAL  NOOKS 


IN  PLEASANT  WEATHER. 


BY 


BENJ.  F.  TAYLOR,  LL.D., 

AUTHOR  OF  lt  THE  WORLD  ON  WHEELS,"  "BETWEEN  THE  GATES, 
"SONGS  OF  YESTERDAY, "  ETC. 


CHICAGO: 
S.    C.    GRIGGS   AND    COMPANY. 

1879. 


COPYRIGHT,  1879, 
BY  S.  C.  GRIGGS  AND  COMPANY. 


[""KNIGHT    S"  LEONARD 


BONOHUE    &    HENNEBEKRY,    BINDERS,    CHICAGO. 


TO 

S.  O.  GEIGGS,  ESQ., 

MY   FRIEND   OF   " ALWAYS/' 

WHOSE   IMPRINT   HAS  ADORNED  MY  BOOKS   FROM 
FIRST   TO   LAST, 

THIS  RAMBLING  RECORD  IS  CORDIALLY 

INSCRIBED. 


3G5996 


"ON  THE.  STILE." 

SAGE,  Caraway,  Summer-Savory,  and  Dill,  are  four 
aromatic  memories  of  the  old  fire-side  and  garden- 
side.  They  suggest  the  fragrant  little  trifles  that 
enrich  life  beyond  silver  and  gold.  They  are  good, 
winter  and  summer. 

For  these  records  of  gypsy-like  rambles  in.  sunny 
days  I  have  picked  a  leaf  from  the  garden  border 
close  to  the  hollyhocks,  and  chosen  a  name  —  SUMMER- 
SAVORY.  Let  us  hope  the  next  leaf  gathered  will  not 
be  from  among  the  poppies.  That's  for  forgetfulness. 

It  is  an  art  to  set  back  the  old  clock  and  be  a 
child  again.  Imagination  can  easily  see  the  boy  a 
man,  but  how  hard  for  it  to  see  the  man  a  child ; 
and  whoever  learns  to  glide  back  into  that  rosy  time 
when  he  did  not  know  that  thorns  are  under  the 
roses,  or  that  clouds  will  return  after  the  rain ;  when 
he  thought  a  tear  can  no  more  stain  a  cheek  than  a 
drop  of  rain  a  flower;  when  he  fancied  life  had  no 
disguises,  and  hope  no  blight  at  all,  has  come  as  near 
as  anybody  in  the  world  to  discovering  the  North 
west  Passage  to  an  earthly  Paradise. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  "A  HEATED  TERM"  -      7 

II.  GLIMPSES  OF  UTAH                        -        -  16 

III.  PICTURES  OF  COLORADO    -        -        -  -  31 

IV.  "YE  CRAGS  AND  PEAKS"  37 
V.  "THE  GARDEN  OF  THE  GODS"         -  -    46 

VI.  HATS     -------  51 

VII.  THE  MEN  OF  GROOVES     -        -        -  -    55 

VIII.  THE  NORTH  WOODS  66 

IX.  FUNERAL  EXTRAVAGANCE                 -  -    78 

X.  "MiNE  INN"        -----  86 

XL  THE  CARAVAN          -  -    98 

XII.  EXCURSIONS                                   -  106 

XIII.  THE  "NORTH  WOODS"  MEETING-HOUSE-  112 

XIV.  WINKS  AND  WINKERS  118 
XV.  HUMAN  FIGS    ------  121 

XVI.  "THE  HILL  OF  SCIENCE"  127 


6  CONTENTS. 

XVII.  THE  COUNTRY  "CORNERS"    -        -  -    134 

XVIII.  AQUARIUS  THE  WATER-BEARER  -        -  144 

XIX.  HILL  COUSINS         ..        .  150 

XX.  JAW     -------  162 

XXI.  JUST  AND  GENEROUS      -  166 

XXII.  STITCHING  LANDSCAPES      -  173 

XXIII.  THE  COUNTRY  BA.LL-ROOM      -        -  -     181 

XXIV.  A  THANKSGIVING  DAY  FLIGHT         -  187 

XXV.  "KlVERSIDE"   AND   "LAKESIDE"      -  -      198 

XXVI.  CHECKS 206 


SUMMER-SAVORY, 

GLEANED  FROM  RURAL  NOOKS  IN  PLEASANT  WEATHER. 


CHAPTER   1. 

"A  HEATED  TERM." 

world  is  out  of  sight.  The  high  tides  of 
JL  midsummer  have  rolled  over  it.  The  green  vol 
umes  of  the  maples,  the  tumbling  fountains  of  the 
willows,  the  pensile  spray  of  the  elms,  the  golden 
calms  of  the  ripe  grain,  the  chopping  seas  of  the 
swath-ridged  -meadows,  have  submerged  and  washed 
our  brown  planet  quite  away.  The  armed  squadrons 
of  corn  are  marching  to  the  tune  of  100°  in  the  shade. 
They  have  whipped  out  all  their  swords  and  thrown 
away  the  scabbards.  Their  green  knapsacks  are  grow 
ing  plump  with  rations  of  samp,  hasty -pudding  and 
Indian  bread.  The  sweet  whispers  of  the  lilacs,  tell 
ing  of  days  that  are  no  more,  have  died  out  of  the 
year  of  grace.  The  first  flush  of  June  roses  has  faded, 
the  first  love-songs  of  birds  have  been  sung,  the  broad 
zone  of  the  matron  has  succeeded  to  the  slender  sash 
of  the  maid,  and  the  year  is  marching  on.  It  is  a 
splendid  tramp,  besides  being  a  trump.  The  white 
star-blossom  of  the  strawberry  has  heralded  the  sweet 

7 


8  'SUMMER-SAVORY. 

red  Mars  of  the  ripened  fruit — the  star  is  a  pleiad  and 
the  planet  has  —  gone  down!  There  is  a  faint  smell 
of  new  apples  in  the  air,  that  is  better  than  gales  from 
Araby  the  Blest.  There  is  a  suspicion  of  caraway, 
and  a  hint  of  dill,  and  a  breath  from  the  red  clover. 
Nature  is  rich  in  compensations,  and  her  losses  and 
her  gains  are  paired  like  the  embarking  menagerie  of 
the  first  Admiral,  when  the  Ark  put  to  sea  with  the 
greatest  and  only  show  on  earth,  bound  for  Ararat  and 
a  market. 

The  lights  and  shades  of  the  year  touch  and  tint 
and  change  everything  but  the  English  sparrow, — that 
goes  right  on  with  its  saucy  talk  and  its  perpetual 
fight  and  its  ceaseless  paternosters  of  beaded  eggs  the 
year  round.  Snow  or  glow,  zephyr  or  northeaster,  it 
is  all  the  same.  What  a  pugnacious,  aggressive  ounce 
of  British  bird  it  is !  It  routs  our  robins  and  perse 
cutes  our  goldfinches,  arid  the  gypsy  baskets  of  the 
orioles  swing  empty.  Oh,  for  another  Bunker  Hill ! 
And  yet.  some  cry,  Spare,  oh,  the  sparrow ! 

100°. 

I  have  been  seeking  a  cool  place.  The  ambition  of 
the  mercury  wearies  me.  The  thought  of  Dr.  Kane's 
chronometer,  that  was  so  cold  it  burned  him,  is  no 
comfort.  Even  the  "Exiles  of  Siberia"  are  selfish  as 
oysters.  There  they  are  to-day,  comfortably  freezing 
their  feet,  and  do  not  offer  us  so  much  as  a  chill  of  a 
chance  to  frost  a  finger.  The  little  arrow  that  swings 
from  the  top  of  the  barn  seems  to  be  welded  to  the 


9 

spire  by  the  solar  force,  and  to  be  drawing  fire  with 
its  barbed  point  out  of  the  fierce  south.  The  leaves 
of  a  tree  by  my  window  curl  in  the  sun,  as  if  they 
were  trying  to  get  back  into  the  bud  again,  and  be 
cozy  and  cool  as  they  were  when  the  world  went 
Maying. 

The  robins  sit  on  the  cherry-tree  with  bills  apart 
like  a  Y,  and  their  wings  at  trail  arras.  I  can  almost 
detect  the  smell  of  burned  feathers.  A  match  on  the 
window-sill  sets  off  of  its  own  accord,  and  commits 
suicide  to  get  out  of  its  misery. 

Lawyers'  clients  grow  irritable,  and  desire  to 
"sue"  somebody  right  away,  and  talk  in  a  salaman- 
derish  style  about  making  the  defendant  "sweat." 
Doctors'  patients  languish  and  wilt.  Heat  expands 
most  things  but  sermons, —  they  shrink  from  an  hour 
to  twenty  minutes,  and  sometimes  the  preachers 
themselves  are  scorched  out  of  their  pulpits,  and 
flee  to  the  mountains  and  the  islands  of  the  sea. 
Some  cynic  has  growled  because  clergymen  take  a 
vacation  in  summer,  and  sneered  with  an  unanswer 
able  air,  "Are  not  immortal  souls  as  precious  in  dog- 
days  as  in  December?"  As  if,  with  thermometers 
at  a  hundred  in  the  shade,  a  preacher  cannot  safely 
leave  his  flock  so  long  as  he  leaves  the  orthodox 
suggestion  behind  him,  and  does  not  take  the  hot 
weather  away  with  him. 

But  ice-men,  dragon-flies  and  sun-flowers  are  hap 
py,  and  never  was  a  day  so  torrid  that  a  soda-fountain 
was  unable  to  play.  Yes,  and  scarlet  geraniums ! 


10  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

There  is  one  of  them  now,  bolt-upright  in  an  iron 
vase  painted  a  comfortable  color  to  warm  you  up 
just  by  looking  at  it,  standing  out  in  "the  burden 
and  heat  of  the  day,"  and  hot  enough  to  take  a 
helpless  egg  beyond  the  third  week  of  incubation,  and 
a  minute  or  two  toward  the  boiling-point  of  "eggs 
rare."  That  geranium  has  fairly  taken  fire  with  its 
scarlet  flowers,  and  flares  as  happy  as  a  torch  in  a 
triumphal  procession. 

People  are  never  so  like  one  another  as  in  a  heated 
term.  They  get  melted  down  into  a  homogeneous 
mass  of  humanity.  Had  I  written  it  "mess"  it  would 
have  been  no  matter.  Their  angularities  are  fused  off. 
They  cease  to  be  original.  They  say,  "Isn't  it  hot ! " 
They  blow  a  'ghost  of  a  whistle  without  any  ~body  to 
it.  They  say,  "  whew ! "  Their  collars  droop  like  a 
hound's  ears.  They  expand  into  broad-brimmed  hats. 
They  blossom  out  with  umbrellas.  They  festina 
lente. 

The  clouds  come  up  every  day,  and  lay  their 
rugged  heads  on  the  rim  of  the  horizon,  and  watch 
the  landscape  to  see  if  it  is  done  brown  or  done  to 
a  turn ;  but  it  isn't,  and  so  those  drowsy  heads  sink 
back,  and  leave  the  sky  all  clear  for  the  setting  sun 
to  give  us  a  parting  roast  at  short  range.  How  the 
brick  walls  throb  and  the  stone  pavements  dance  with 
caloric !  And  the  earth  turns  over  and  over  and  fails 
to  find  a  cool  side.  We  feel  the  sun  as  it  fires  the 
east  windows,  and  grills  the  roof,  and  sits  down  on 
every  shingle,  and  scorches  the  front  room,  and  cooks 


"A    HEATED    TERM."  11 

the  west  room,  and  toasts  the  veranda,  and  bakes  the 
walls  till  they  begin  to  be  as  much  at  home  as  they 
ever  were  in  the  brick-kiln. 

And  we  are  all  the  while  watching  for  wind.  A 
poplar  lifts  an  ear  of  a  leaf  as  if  it  heard  something, 
and  we  take  courage,  but  nothing  comes  of  it.  As 
a  rule,  the  wind  is  always  blowing  somewhere  else  in 
sultry  weather.  If  you  happen  to  have  no  south 
window,  there  is  just  where  it  swings  a  vine  or  sways 
a  tree.  There  is  quite  a  breeze  in  the  next  town,  and 
a  gale  in  the  adjoining  county,  possibly  a  tornado,  but 
with  you  it  is  as  calm  as  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  Fans? 
To  be  sure  —  but  then  if  you  have  got  to  work  them, 
you  prefer  to  wait  till  cool  weather  for  it.  Fourth-of- 
July  orations  and  fans  are  alike :  windy  but  not  ex 
hilarating,  and  very  fatiguing  withal.  "Wasps,  as  if 
black  rapiers  should  take  wing,  dart  through  the  open 
window  like  shuttles  through  a  loom.  You  dodge 
every  red  tongue  with  a  dog  to  it,  lest  the  attach 
ment  has  grown  mad  with  heat.  You  hunt  for  a 
cabbage-leaf  for  your  hat  lest  you  be  sun-struck,  and 
you  grow  such  an  absorbent  of  water  that  the  leaf  is 
about  as  much  at  home  as  if  you  were  a  cabbage 
yourself. 

The  sun  has  such  a  habit  of  rising  that  it  cannot 
avoid  it,  and  it  comes  up  clear  and  red  in  the  latter 
part  of  every  night.  If  it  could  only  spend  an  autumn 
or  two  in  Indiana,  and  get  "  the  chills,"  and  have  an 
intermittent  fever,  instead  of  the  steady,  unwinking 
blaze ! 


12  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

Peeled  like  an  onion,  to  get  as  near  as  possible  to 
the  carbonate  of  lime  without  becoming  an  outright 
anatomy,  I  have  been  trying  to  write !  My  face  and 
hands  beaded  with  sweat  like  a  savage's  wampum;  a 
sudorific,  saline  stream  trickling  down  the  pen,  and 
diluting  the  ink  and  pickling  the  words,  and  making 
the  wet  paper  as  pleasant  to  write  upon  as  a  jelly-fish, 
and  as  appetizing  to  sheep  as  a  salt-lick,  I  have  been 
trying  to  scollop  off  a  remembered  sky  with  the  silver 
edges  of  Colorado  mountains,  and  give  my  reader  a 
Sabbath-day's  journey  toward  the  Utah  Canaan,  and 
bid  him  see  the  great  white  visible  throne  of  Pike's 
Peak  through  the  red  gateway  of  the  Garden  of  the 
Gods. 

Had  my  memories  been  a  kid,  and  a  mess  of  pot 
tage  exactly  the  dish  to  serve  up  on  a  page,  it  would 
have  been  brought  on,  piping  hot  from  the  seething 
kettle  of  the  heated  term.  But  when  a  man's  pen 
can  get  about  hot  enough  in  the  sun  to  brand  a  mule, 
it  is  time  he  plunged  it  into  the  trough  with  the 
blacksmith's  tongs,  and  got  the  owner  of  the  iron 
fingers  to  give  him  a  few  blasts  from  the  bellows. 

And  so  the  glowing  days  burned  on.  The  elms 
stood  about  as  dusty  as  elephants  and  supple  as  sled- 
stakes.  The  air  grew  murky,  and  Fancy  limped  as  if 
it  had  lost  a  foot.  It  was  like  holding  the  scythe  and 
turning  the  grindstone  too.  Shadrach  could  not  have 
lived  in  the  third  story  of  the  house  without  a  miracle. 
Meshach  would  not  have  despised  the  second,  and 
Abednego  would  have  remembered  the  fiery  furnace 


13 

had  he  gone  to  bed  in  the  first.  The  building  had 
become  warmed  down  through.  It  was  three  layers 
of  torrid  zone. 

And  then  I  rose  betimes,  and,  satchel  in  hand, 
climbed  a  huge  green  hill,  and  found  welcome  in  a 
great  roomy  house  that  opened  its  hospitable  doors 
to  the  four  quarters  and  the  thirty-two  winds  of 
heaven;  and  the  city  was  under  my  feet,  the  beautiful 
city  of  Syracuse,  salted  and  seasoned,  and  warranted 
to  keep  in  any  climate.  And  the  winds  came  from 
the  southwest  and  laid  cool  hands  upon  my  brow,  and 
I  sat  down  upon  a  granite  door-step  as  cold  as  Ponto's 
nose,  while  behold,  the  marble  mantels  in  the  city  had 
been  warm  as  a  slab  of  new  gingerbread.  And  the 
rippling  grain  had  a  cool  look,  and  the  timothy  smelled 
sweet  in  the  sun,  and  the  shadow  of  the  great  house 
fell  upon  the  ground  like  a  home-made  twilight,  and 
the  blessed  winds  came  and  went,  and  the  grass  gave 
to  the  feet  like  a  king's  carpet. 

Then  the  fleecy  flocks  of  the  Lord  came  trooping 
over  the  unfenced  edge  of  the  western  horizon,  and 
we  saw  them  long  before  the  city  below  knew  they 
were  coining  at  all,  and  we  wondered  how  they 
would  wonder,  and  we  rejoiced  for  them  beforehand. 
And  when  the  flocks  were  all  in  the  home  pasture 
over  the  city,  the  smooth  wall  of  a  blue  slate-stone 
quarry  showed  along  the  west,  and  out  of  it,  as  if 
there  had  been  a  door,  came  a  troop  of  breezy  shep 
herds  ;  and  the  flocks  were  stampeded  across  the 
whole  visible  heaven,  with  the  cracking  of  great 


14  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

whips  and  the  flicker  of  torches ;  and  the  roof  of  the 
great  house  roared  with  the  wind  and  the  rain,  like 
a  drum-corps  sixty  men  strong,  and  the  slanting  rat 
lins  of  the  storm  were  drawn  taut  through  the  air 
from  heaven  even  down  to  the  earth,  and  denser  than 
you  ever  saw  them  in  a  ship's  rigging ;  and  the  bowed 
trees  wrapped  all  their  leaves  about  them  as  if  they 
had  been  cloaks ;  and  the  grains  and  grasses  bent 
low  to  keep  out  of  the  storm,  and  the  pansies  just 
stood  and  shook  with  their  quaint  and  quiet  laughter, 
and  by-and-by  the  sun  shone  out,  and  lo,  there  is  a 
new  heaven  and  a  new  earth  ! 

The  city  that  was  tawny  as  a  lion  shines  green 
as  an  emerald.  The  smoky  air  is  washed  clean  and 
cool.  We  breathe  to  the  bottom  of  our  lungs,  with 
great  respirations,  as  the  parched  yoke-bearers  divert 
the  route  of  the  running  brook  into  their  dry  and 
thirsty  throats,  with  long  drinks  and  great  breaths 
of  satisfaction  between.  The  buttons  of  the  vest 
worn  a-flap  and  a-flare  made  for  their  holes  like 
prairie-dogs;  the  coat  that  had  been  about  as  intol 
erable  as  the  shirt  of  Nessus  was  donned  with  a 
sense  of  relief;  and  behold,  I  was  "  clothed  and  in 
my  right  mind."  And  with  a  cool,  dry  hand,  that 
only  yesterday  was  as  imhandy  a  member  to  write 
with  as  a  seal's  flipper,  I  grasped  the  pen  and  said, 
"  I  will  write  off  the  salted  rust  of  the  sweat  from  my 
steel  pen,  as  they  scour  a  plowshare  with  a  few 
bouts  in  the  fallow ;  I  will  record  the  glowing  mem 
ories  of  the  days  and  nights  of  capsicum  and  cay- 


15 

erme;  and  my  gratitude  for  the  green  hill  and  the 
free  winds,  and  the  splendid  rain  that  swept  the  val 
ley  of  Onondaga  with  its  royal  skirts,  when  the  rush 
and  tumult  of  the  storm  and  the  bewildered  and  be 
clouded  sky  made  it  the  fairest  day  in  the  calendar 
of  a  long  fortnight." 

What  precious  stuff  it  is  they  write  who  wish  for 
their  friends  cloudless  skies  and  gentle  breezes  and 
eternal  sunshine!  Who  has  not  seen  some  fellow's 
sonnet  to  his  girl  of  flesh  and  blood,  imploring  such 
tropical  blessings  upon  her  innocent  head  as  could 
only  be  endured  by  phenixes,  salamanders,  and  black 
smiths'  anvils!  Let  us  have  sense. 


CHAPTER  II. 

GLIMPSES  OF  UTAH. 

DID  you  ever  see  a  man  that  had  been  scalped ? — 
not  by  the  patriarch  with  his  scythe,  but  by  the 
savage  with  his  knife?  Well,  it  will  not  pay  to  see 
him,  as  a  general  thing,  unless  you  have  a  bit  of  blue- 
closet  curiosity  about  you,  and  almost  everybody  has. 
I  know  a  lady  who  goes  to  every  funeral  she  can  hear 
of  within  a  Sabbath-day's  journey,  and  looks  at  the 
deceased  and  watches  the  mourners,  and  determines 
the  depth  and  strength  and  probable  length  of  their 
sorrow.  She  is  about  as  sure  to  be  at  your  funeral  as 
she  is  to  be  at  her  own. 

But  it  gives  you  a  queer  sensation,  and  not  with 
out  a  pleasant  trace  of  horror  in  it,  to  sit  beside  a 
well-favored  gentleman,  with  luxuriant  hair  showing 
around  the  edge  of  his  cap,  and  think  that  a  savage 
once  had  him  in  his  clutch  with  a  whoop,  and  swept 
a  keen  knife  around  his  lifted  locks  with  another 
whoop,  and  whirled  the  trophy  aloft  with  more 
whoops,  every  atom  as  barbarously  delighted  as  a 
fox-hunter  when  he  flaunts  poor  Reynard's  "  brush," 
and  sounds  "  the  treble  mort."  It  brings  back  the 
old  border  tales  of  the  log-cabin  times,  you  used  to 
hear  on  winter  nights,  when  you  flung  an  eye  over 

16 


GLIMPSES    OF    UTAH.  17 

your  shoulder  as  the  yarn  ran  off,  lest  Black  Hawk 
or  Red  Jacket,  or  somebody  smelling  of  moccasins, 
blankets,  smoke  and  kinnikinic,  should  show  a  red- 
ochre  visage  at  a  green  window-pane. 

That  very  pleasant  gentleman  is  a  conductor  on 
the  Central  Pacific  railroad,  and  beguiled  the  way 
for  me  as  we  steamed  toward  Ogden  from  the  west. 
He  ventured  to  a  little  stream  two  miles  from  a  sta 
tion  for  trout  one  day,  and  Chief-Justice  Story's  nat 
ural  nobleman  surprised  him,  scalped  him,  and  left 
him  for  dead.  I  knew  all  about  it,  but  I  had  a  mis 
erable  desire  to  hear  him  describe  the  capillary  calam 
ity,  though  I  could  not  quite  ask  him  a  blunt  ques 
tion  about  "  the  rape  of  the  lock.''  I  mentioned 
savages,  if  perchance  he  might  say  he  knew  too  much 
of  them,  and  then  gratify  my  curiosity,  but  he  had 
apparently  forgotten  the  circumstance.  I  spoke  of 
narrow  escapes  in  the  wilderness,  but  he  only 
scratched  one  ear  with  a  thoughtful  finger,  and 
pointed  out  a  rock  with  a  nose  and  chin  like  Vol 
taire's,  and  an  eagle  on  a  crag  that  looked  as  if  he 
had  been  scalped.  "Bald?"  I  said;  ubald,"  he  re 
plied  ;  and  that  was  as  near  as  he  ever  got  to  the 
subject. 

It  was  a  sunny  morning  when  we  drew  up  beside 
the  depot  at  Ogden,  where  a  hungry  gong  roared  at 
us  with  a  breath  redolent  of  onion,  cabbage,  roast, 
fry  and  stew,  and  a  little  bell  made  mouths  at  us  and 
gave  tongue,  telling  of  "funeral-baked  meats"  all 

cold    for    lunches,    and    we    accepted    the    invitation. 
1* 


18  SUMMEK-SAVORY. 

Fowls  stiff  and  stark  lay  in  piles,  and  so  cerulean  of 
breast,  back  and  thigh,  as  to  compel  the  inference  that 
they  belonged  to  the  tribe  of  the  Delawares,  "Blue 
Hen's  chickens"  every  egg  of  them  all.  The  Wah- 
satch  Mountains  crowned  with  snow  lift  their  thou 
sands  of  feet  of  grandeur,  and  the  Great  Salt  Lake 
stretches  its  glittering  length  for  eighty  miles,  an  un 
inhabited  waste  of  three  ides,  three  urns  and  an  ate, 
to  wit:  chlorides  of  sodium,  magnesium,  calcium,  and 
a  sulphate  of  soda.  But  they  will  keep,  while  un 
happily  the  fowls  were  kept  too  long.  At  last  the 
locomotive  whistled  us  aboard  the  Utah  Central  train, 
bound  for  Salt  Lake  City,  thirty-six  miles  to  the 
south.  The  conductor  wras  a  Mormon  ;  also  the  en 
gineer;  likewise  the  brakeman.  We  looked  curi 
ously  about  for  "signs"  of  the  peculiar  people.  They 
were  invisible.  You  might  as  well  expect  to  catch  a 
Baptist  by  baiting  a  trap  with  a  water-tank  as  to  de 
tect  the  intelligent  Mormon  by  any  sanctimonious 
slides  and  cadences. 

There  was  but  one  Pharisee  on  the  train,  and  I  am 
sorry  to  say  he  believed  in  John  Calvin.  A  Bible  in 
his  hand,  displayed  to  show  the  "Rev.  X.  Y.  Z.";  a 
roll  of  sermon  protruding  like  a  revolver  from  his 
breast-pocket;  his  hair  parted  on  the  "divide"  of 
philoprogenitiveness  —  what  a  septisyllable  it  isl 
and  brought  up  over  his  ears  like  two  little  bundles 
of  oats  thrust  in  the  elbows  of  a  couple  of  barn-braces, 
and  about  ripe ;  the  corners  of  his  mouth  curved  down 
for  pronouncing  a  "woe"  upon  somebody  at  sight;  a 


GLIMPSES   OF    UTAH.  19 

wrinkle  to  his  nose,  as  if  a  rank  offense  saluted  him 
as  it  smelled  to  heaven, —  there  he  sat,  making  the  ob 
server  positively  bilious  with  depravity  as  he  watched 
him.  Begging  his  pardon,  I  asked  him  the  name  of 
a  place  we  were  nearing.  He  made  an  emphatic  pause 
before  he  replied,  and  then,  with  a  momentous  look 
and  a  deliberate  air,  as  if  he  fancied  he  had  written 
the  Decalogue  and  were  promulgating  it  for  the  first 
time,  he  picked  his  way  from  word  to  word,  as  if  they 
were  stepping-stones  across  a  brook,  and  said,  "  That 
—place  —  ah  —  is  —  called  —  ah  —  Kaysville  !  "  Fancy 
such  a  man  moving  you  to  do  anything  but  get  out  of 
his  reach,  or  persuading  you  to  give  anything  but  the 
cold  shoulder! 

A  stately  gentleman  in  black,  with  a  pleasant  look 
and  a  fatherly  way  —  and  he  proved  to  be  exceedingly 
fatherly  —  and  with  wives  enough  for  three  bishops, 
attracts  your  attention.  He  may  be  a  lawyer  who  has 
clients,  or  a  doctor  who  has  patients,  or  a  clergyman 
who  can  sing  "A  Charge  to  Keep  I  Have,'7  but  you 
are  sure  he  is  a  prominent  member  of  society  because 
of  the  spread  of  his  vest,  as  if  it  were  buttoned  over 
the  benighted  and  barbarous  regions  of  an  artificial 
globe.  He  looks  as  if  he  would  give  you  a  check  for 
a  million,  and  you  could  not  prevent  him  from  doing 
it  if  you  tried.  He  is  a  Mormon  preacher.  He  came 
through  Emigration  Canon  when  he  was  leaner.  He 
saw  this  valley  of  abundance  in  the  sage-brush  and 
alkali  period,  before  the  soap-provoker  had  yielded  to 
the  roses  of  Sharon. 


20  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

And  the  train  is  speeding  along  over  the  toes 
of  the  Wahsatch  rugged  range.  The  Great  Salt 
Lake  shines  in  the  sun  on  the  west.  Evidences  of 
fertility  and  abundance  surround  you,  but  it  is  a 
rugged,  a  sort  of  old  Saxon  abundance.  There  are 
beautiful  places  for  beauty  everywhere,  but  it  has  not 
risen  to  cultivated  elegance.  It  is  the  garment  with 
the  selvedge  on.  Things  are  not  square-cut  and 
hemmed,  but  a  little  tag-locked  and  ragged  at  the 
edges.  But  there  are  no  "lean  years"  in  Utah.  Had 
I  visited  this  valley  in  1847  I.  should  have  been  in 
Mexico,  but  now  I  am  in  an  outlying  province  of — 
Turkey. 

White  patches  of  alkaline  soil  show  here  and  there ; 
orchards  dot  the  picture ;  broad  pastures  freckled  with 
great  herds  of  sleek  cattle  unroll.  Mount  Nebo  lifts 
its  tall  winter  one  hundred  and  twenty  miles  away. 
Fremont's  Peak  is  fifteen  miles  to  the  right.  The 
Mountain  of  Prophecy  shows  its  dome  to  the  north. 
We  are  nearing  the  banks  of  the  latter-day  Jordan. 
The  sharp  gleam  of  the  Lake,  with  its  islands  and  its 
sea-gulls  and  its  drift  of  clean  salt,  is  as  cooling  to 
look  at  as  the  flash  of  a  sword-blade.  The  rain  here 
as  in  California  is  home-made.  Utah  goes  by  water. 

THE   TABERNACLE. 

At  last  the  gray  roof  of  the  Tabernacle  shows 
above  the  trees.  It  is  the  half  of  a  gigantic  egg 
resting  upon  forty-six  sandstone  columns.  Gentiles 
say  it  is  "  a  lad  egg."  Build  a  mental  bird  that  could 


GLIMPSES   OF    UTAH.  21 

lay  an  egg  two  hundred  and  fifty  feet  long  and  one 
hundred  and  fifty  wide !  It  is  the  great  egg  of  Utah. 
Between  these  pillars  are  windows  and  doors;  open 
them,  and  nothing  is  left  but  columns  and  roof. 

The  streets  of  Salt  Lake  City  are  broad  avenues 
lying  square  with  the  world,  lined  with  beautiful 
trees,  and  bordered  with  streams  of  mountain  water. 
Where  in  Christendom  are  the  reeking  gutters,  in 
Morrnondom  are  the  clean,  live  brooks.  But  the 
streets  were  dusty,  the  Avinds  were  awake,  and  the 
mercury  was  lively.  There  are  beautiful  homes,  there 
are  adobe  houses,  there  are  many  hives. 

Tt  was  Sunday,  and  we  went  to  the  Tabernacle. 
The  great  oval  structure,  sixty-five  feet  to  the  roof, 
wTas  dressed  in  the  gloomy  pomp  of  mourning  for  the 
dead  president,  Brigham  Young.  Immense  funeral 
wreaths  depended  from  the  ceiling.  The  great  dais, 
raised  tier  above  tier,  was  draped  in  black,  and  upon 
it  were  seated  the  Twelve,  and  the  Elders  and  Bishops 
of  the  Church  of  Mormon.  And  they  were  an  im 
pressive  and  dignified  body  of  men.  John  Taylor 
with  his  frosty  crown  ;  Orson  Pratt  looking  over  the 
gray  hedge  of  a  mighty  beard ;  John  Sharp,  shrewd, 
angular  and  genial ;  George  Q.  Cannon,  clean-looking, 
amiable,  and  winning  in  his  wrays.  He  had  a  word 
to  say  about  tithes,  and  rallied  up  the  stone-masons  to 
work  upon  the  new  Temple.  But  you  would  suppose 
from  the  pleasant  way  he  talked  that  he  \vas  not  call 
ing  for  ten  per  cent  of  back-ache,  tug  and  trowel ;  but 
explaining  how  every  man  could  be  his  own  doctor 


22  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

or  lawyer,  or  could  get  more  money  for  eight  hours' 
work  than  lie  could  possibly  earn  in  ten.  Take  the 
great  Sanhedrim  together,  it  looked  legislative  enough 
to  be  a  Senate.  The  black  background  was  dotted 
with  white  heads.  There  was  now  and  then  a  bullet- 
head  or  a  chuckle-head,  but  of  the  majority,  some  of 
them  might  have  been  Baptist  deacons,  or  Methodist 
ministers,  or  Presbyterian  dominies,  or  presidents  of 
colleges.  Behind  them  towered  the  great  organ  in  its 
trappings  of  woe.  Built  where  it  stands,  it  rises  like 
a  castle,  one  of  the  great  musical  instruments  of  the 
world.  The  fine  choir  of  adults  clustered  about  its 
base  looked  like  boys  and  girls,  and  when  the  mellow 
thunder  of  the  deep  bass  rolled  out,  and  all  the  birds 
and  flutes  locked  up  in  it  were  let  loose  above  the  surf 
of  sound,  and  the  warble  of  the  human  voices  came 
out  in  the  lulls,  it  was  very  grand. 

But  the  master-spirit  of  the  dais  had  abdicated. 
Brigham  Young  was  not  there.  Coarse  and  strong, 
with  wonderful  executive  powers,  of  an  earnest  and 
dogged  purpose  that  never  let  go,  a  self-reliance  that 
breasted  storm  and  bearded  wilderness,  nothing  if  not 
resolute,  knowing  what  men  were  fitted  to  his  use, 
and  building  them  in  the  wall  of  his  design  as  a 
mason  lays  the  stone,  he  brought  the  most  heteroge 
neous  elements  into  harmony,  taught  a  Babel  of 
tongues  to  talk  Mormon  with  one  accord,  left  a  bloom 
ing  garden  where  he  found  a  wilderness  that  grew 
ghastly  pale  at  its  own  desolation,  founded  the  mid- 
continental  city  of  America,  and  hastened  the  build- 


GLIMPSES   OF   UTAH.  23 

ing  of  the  iron  highway  from  Atlantic  to  Pacific  a 
whole  generation  of  men. 


THE    PEOPLE. 


I  hoped  John  Taylor  would  preach,  but  a  nephew 
of  Smith  of  the  tribe  of  Joseph,  who  had  been  on  a 
mission  to  Europe,  cumbered  the  ground.  A  pale, 
lank-sided  fanatic,  who  railed  at  the  Gentiles  with 
venomous  bitterness  as  only  a  bloodless  man  can  rail, 
and  the  fiercer  he  talked  the  paler  he  grew,  till  his 
waxen  face,  relieved  upon  the  black  drapery,  gave  the 
grotesque  effect  of  a  medallion-head  escaping  from 
the  medal,  becoming  animate  and  angry,  and  bobbing 
about  upon  the  jet  velvet  like  the  rolling  eyeballs 
of  Othello. 

But  if  Smith  was  not  worth  hearing,  the  great 
audience  was  a  memorable  sight.  Fancy  six  thousand 
faces  fitted  into  an  ellipse  that  will  seat  eight  thou 
sand  people, —  a  huge  mosaic  of  human  heads!  There 
were  at  least  a  thousand  children  among  them,  sorted 
off  with  picket-lines  of  mothers  between,  and  about 
four-score  infants  in  arms.  It  would  have  been  an 
appetizing  sight  for  Herod,  and  would  have  kept  the 
baby-eating  Saturn  in  rations  for  three  months.  Ev 
ery  style  of  dress  was  represented,  from  the  old  poke- 
Bonnet  with  a  puckered  face  in  its  back  room  to 
the  wafer  of  a  hat  with  a  butterfly  on  it,  and  the 
lamp-mat  trifle  just  caught  on  the  bump  of  appro- 
bativeness  behind.  There  was  the  old  beaver  chafed 
bare  in  spots,  as  if  it  had  worked  in  harness  some 


24  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

time,  and  the  new  silk  that  shines  like  a  bottle. 
There  was  the  modern  girl  hung  about  with  two  or 
three  dresses  of  different  lengths  and  divers  colors, 
and  curiously  caught  up  with  half-reefs  here  and  there, 
as  if  a  sailor  had  been  taking  in  the  top-hamper  for 
a  storm  and  got  blown  overboard  in  the  act.  There 
was  the  strait,  scant  skirt  of  the  ancient  girl  collapsed 
about  her  form  like  a  balloon  with  the  valve  gone. 
Aggregate  a  hundred  school-house  and  four-corners 
country  audiences  of  thirty  years  ago,  sprinkle  in  a 
few  city  people  here  and  there,  and  you  have  an  idea 
of  that  great  congregation. 

You  will  look  in  vain  for  facial  signs  of  utter 
misery.  There  are  sad-eyed,  weary-looking  women, 
and  so  there  are  everywhere.  You  can  pick  out 
many  a  devout  believer  who  came  through  the  wil 
derness  of  old.  You  can  detect  the  honest  doubters 
and  the  foxy  professors  and  the  sincere  worshipers. 
Drawn  largely  from  the  laboring  classes  of  Europe, 
any  considerable  intelligence  and  culture  cannot  be 
found  in  the  rank  and  file,  but  it  is  an  error  to 
think  this  has  not  remarkable  exceptions.  There 
are  astronomers  and  naturalists  of  no  mean  order; 
linguists  that  could  grace  a  professor's  chair  in  east 
ern  universities;  men  of  general  cultivation  and  large 
business  ability,  and  women  of  refinement. 

But  the  children  are  a  marvelous  product.  You 
ride  along  the  beautiful  avenues  and  see  groups  of 
them,  neatly  dressed  and  bright  as  quicksilver,  play 
ing  in  the  shade.  You  meet  clusters  of  Brigham 


GLIMPSES   OF   UTAH.  25 

Young's  grandchildren ;  you  encounter  his  sons  and 
daughters.  Every  girl  is  half-sister  to  somebody,  and 
a  boy's  father  may  be  his  uncle,  and  his  mother  own 
aunt  to  his  half-brother.  The  ward  schools  swarm 
with  children.  A  large  and  efficient  Episcopal  school 
numbers  its  pupils  by  hundreds,  many  of  whose  par 
ents  are  Mormons,  for  about  five-sixths  of  the  people 
are  "  Saints."  Take  a  flock  of  sheep  in  the  pleasant 
April  days,  flecked  white  with  lambs,  each  saying  its 
a-l)-abs  for  its  mother,  and  you  have  the  picture. 

The  communion  service  is  celebrated  every  Sun 
day,  and  while  Smith  was  yet  preaching,  the  cup 
bearers  with  silver  pitchers  of  water  were  noiselessly 
serving  the  multitude,  of  which  every  one  partook, 
even  to  the  infant  in  arms.  Then  the  last  hymn 
was  sung,  the  benediction  said,  and  the  great  congre 
gation  poured  out  from  every  side  like  ants  from  a 
disturbed  hill,  and  the  Tabernacle  was  solemn  and 
empty  as  a  cave. 

The  death  of  Brigham  Young  was  confidently  be 
lieved  to  mark  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  Mormon- 
ism  ;  that  individual  ambitions  and  jealousies  would 
explode  the  system  like  a  bomb.  But  it  is  not  true. 
When  the  delusion  is  dispelled  it  will  not  be  by 
earthquake  shock  or  government  enactment  or  medi 
tating  bayonets,  but  because  the  incoming  Gentile 
tide  will  wash  out  of  it  all  its  color  and  its  strength, 
and  the  Gentile  sun  will  draw  it  up  in  a  misty  cloud, 
and  the  free  winds  of  the  world  will  blow  it  quite 
away. 


26  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

THE    UTAH    INDIAN. 

The  tribes  of  Utah  were  Brigham  Young's  .fast 
friends.  Whatever  he  did,  he  never  broke  a  promise 
to  them,  and  they  became  his  faithful  allies.  The 
night  after  his  death  the  Indians  kindled  signal  fires 
along  the  mountain  peaks,  and  thus  telegraphed  the 
event  eighty  miles  down  the  valley.  An  old  chief 
who  had  known  Young  since  he  entered  the  wilder 
ness  came  up  by  the  train  the  next  day,  and,  accosting 
no  one,  went  directly  to  the  president's  mansion.  John 
W.  Young  met  him  at  the  door.  "Want  to  see  Brig- 
ham."  "Father  is  dead,"  said  the  son.  "Let  me  see 
him,"  persisted  the  chief.  "Well,  come  in,"  and  the 
Indian  straightened  his  blanket,  smoothed  back  his 
hair,  drew  himself  up,  and  said,  "  Ready." 

Entering  the  room,  he  took  in  everything  without 
turning  an  eye,  and  asked :  "  Where  Brigham  ? "  "  In 
this  box,"  was  the  answer.  He  approached,  laid  his 
hand  upon  it,  and  said:  "Brigham  dead?  He  here?" 
arid  then,  when  his  doubt  was  dispelled,  he  shook 
with  emotion  as  no  paleface  ever  saw  a  savage  moved 
before,  his  broad  chest  heaved,  and  with  the  exclama 
tion,  "  Brigham  dead  !  Brigham  dead  !  "  he  burst  into 
tears,  fairly  convulsed  with  grief.  The  son  stood  si 
lently  by  until  the  chief,  measurably  controlling  his 
emotion,  readjusted  his  blanket,  gave  one  look  at  the 
casket,  and  saying,  "Me  go  home, —  tell  people  Brig- 
ham  dead.  Be  much  cry  there,"  left  the  house,  went 
direct  to  the  depot  where  the  southward-bound  train 


GLIMPSES    OF    UTAH.  27 

was  just  whistling  to' go,  stepped  aboard  and  was  gone 
with  the  tidings. 

The  Indians  on  the  railroads  of  the  far  West  ride 
free.  They,  are  D.  H's,  to  wit,  dead-heads.  The  scale  is 
graduated  thus:  hedgers,  ditchers  and  writers,  full  fare; 
clergymen,  half  fare ;  Indians,  editors  and  infants, 
scot-free.  The  managers  of  the  roads  act  wisely  in 
issuing  "  complimentaries "  to  the  Indians.  Inces 
santly  roaming  about,  they  become  invaluable  police 
at  large.  If  anything  is  wrong  with  rail,  bridge  or 
culvert,  or  any  obstructions  are  placed  upon  the  track, 
their  runners  are  sure  to  warn  the  engineer  and  pre 
vent  the  catastrophe.  Every  paleface  who  rides  upon 
the  trains  may  be  glad  that  the  savages  and  the  editors 
are  friends  to  the  railroad.  Not  a  few  narrow  escapes 
have  become  matters  of  public  news  by  this  route: 
an  Indian  told  the  engineer,  the  engineer  told  the  con 
ductor,  the  conductor  told  the  editor,  and  the  printer 
told  the  world. 

The  desert  of  thirty  years  ago,  walled  in  by  moun 
tains,  inaccessible  by  distance,  is  a  city  to-day  of 
twenty  thousand.  The  locomotive  has  found  it,  the 
trained  lightning  has  struck  it,  fashion  has  overtaken 
it,  the  Gentiles  are  at  its  doors.  Its  broad  avenues, 
with  their  twin  brooklets  and  their  double  lines  of 
shade  trees,  are  traversed  by  street  cars,  its  dwellings 
are  nested  in  gardens,  shrubbery  and  flowers,  its  peo 
ple  extend  the  open  hand  of  welcome.  You  hear  the 
prayers  of  our  fathers  and  the  songs  of  our  mothers, 
and  there  is  little  outdoor  evidence  that  you  are  in  a 


28  SUMMER- SAVORY. 

city  whose  religion  is  as  oriental  and  corrupt  as  the 
faith  of  the  Moslem. 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  has  been  remarked  that 
the  children  of  a  polygamous  alliance  more  frequently 
resemble  their  mothers,  but  I  think  observation  will 
establish  the  fact.  The  Sabbath  is  quite  as  rigidly 
observed  in  Salt  Lake  City  as  in  any  average  village 
in  New  York,  and  far  better  than  in  Chicago  or  the 
majority  of  large  cities  in  the  East,  and  little  presents 
itself  to  offend  the  most  fastidious.  Scenes  of  de 
bauchery  are  unknown.  In  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word,  the  women  of  the  old  Mormon  stock  are  fiercely 
virtuous.  Since  the  advent  of  Gentiles  and  miners, 
in  several  regards  the  slippers  are  worn  a  little  easier 
and  a  trifle  more  down  at  the  heel.  Altogether,  the 
city  is  remarkably  well  governed. 

A  lively  and  ludicrous  warfare  is  kept  up  between 
the  Gentiles  and  the  Mormons.  What  the  former  lack 
in  numbers  they  make  up  in  bantam-like  vim.  Mer 
chandise  is  brought  down  almost  to  the  zero  of  eastern 
prices,  and  a  traveler  direct  from  California,  where  he 
is  expected  to  ~buy  a  section  of  the  hotel  in  which  he 
sojourns,  is  astonished  at  the  Utah  moderation  of 
twenty  shillings  a  day.  If  there  is  danger  of  a  lull 
in  the  battle,  the  papers  all  around  the  board  trumpet 
the  forces  to  a  new  charge,  and  they  are  sharp,  saucy 
and  aggressive  as  hornets  in  a  heated  term. 


GLIMPSES   OF   UTAH.  29 

CAMP    DOUGLAS. 

We  crossed  the  city  with  the  river  Jordan  at  its 
feet,  and  the  mountains  standing  off  from  it  in  a 
stately  way  on  the  east,  and  climbing  seven  hundred 
feet,  and  two  miles  out,  we  bowled  in  upon  the  splen 
did  parade  ground  of  Camp  Douglas.  As  neat  as  a 
nobleman's  lawn  it  is,  with  its  well-appointed  bar 
racks,  its  commodious  and  elegant  officers'  quarters, 
the  tidy  uniforms  of  the  boys  in  blue,  the  old-time 
clank  of  swords,  and  over  all,  glowing  in  the  setting 
sun,  the  most  beautiful  flag  in  the  universe,  always 
saving  and  excepting  the  white  banner  of  the  Prince 
of  Peace.  To  tell  the  truth,  I  had  not  felt  as  if  I 
were  in  the  United  States  since  entering  Utah,  till  I 
struck  the  camp  and  saw  the  flag  and  heard  the  con 
cordant  regimental  band,  as  it  gave  "The  Red,  White 
and  Blue"  to  the  mountains  that  played  it  back,  and 
the  city  that  listened  for  it,  and  the  setting  sun  that 
marched  to  it  down  the  western  slope. 

And  then  the  great  kennels  of  cannon  —  not  a 
Quaker  among  them  —  long-range  fellows  with  their 
noses  toward  the  city  waiting  for  orders.  They  gave 
me  a  comfortable  feeling  when  I  stood  at  the  right 
end  of  them,  for  me,  which  is  the  wrong  end  for 
business.  The  city  lies  at  my  feet  like  a  great  white 
flock  tangled  in  the  shrubbery;  the  sheen  of  the  lake; 
the  twinkle  of  the  river;  the  air  glorified  as  if  an 
evening  cloud  had  stained  it  fast  colors;  the  gateless 
Gaza  of  Emigration  Canon  yawning  below  the  camp, 


30  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

through  which  the  travel-worn  vanguard  rode  thirty 
years  ago,  and  came  out  from  the  ruggedness  and 
shadow  of  ravines  into  the  sunshine  and  calm  of  that 
Mormon  misnomer,  the  Promised  Land.  Altogether 
it  is  a  beautiful  picture,  and  not  easy  to  be  forgotten. 
And  then  we  rattled  down  into  the  valley  and  back 
to  the  hotel  in  the  cool  of  the  night,  and  the  next 
morning  were  away  for  Ogden,  and  well  out  of  Mor- 
mondom,  with  its  border  struggles,  its  dark  and  bloody 
ground,  the  unuttered  sorrows  of  women  and  the 
gloom  of  homes  that  are  loveless.  That  it  can  exist 
and  not  contaminate  the  body  politic  is  one  of  the 
strangest  imaginable  gauges  in  a  Christian  land  to 
measure  the  greatness  of  the  Republic. 


OTIAPTEE  III. 

PICTURES  OF  COLORADO. 

DENVER. 

IT  was  at  Cheyenne  that,  we  got  our  first  steak  of 
the  black-tailed  deer — rich,  juicy,  dark,  a  luxury ; 
and  yet  I  am  frank  enough  to  confess  that  a  bit  of 
Southdown  mutton,  or  even  one  ewe  lamb  garnished 
with  June  peas,  suits  me  quite  as  well.  There  was 
antelope  also, — that  timid  little  lady  of  the  genus  cer- 
vus;  but  I  think  Thackeray,  after  seeing  the  graceful 
creatures  shaking  their  glimpse  of  white  handker 
chief  at  him,  turning  to  watch  him  with  a  touch  of 
human  and  feminine  curiosity,  and  then  bounding 
over  the  plains  as  light  as  thistle-downs,  might  have 
said  he  would  about  as  soon  dine  off  of  a  fine  young 
woman. 

We  take  the  train  for  Denver,  one  hundred  and 
six  miles  south,  and  nearly  a  thousand  feet  down  from 
Cheyenne,  and  are  careering  over  the  rolling  plains 
and  getting  down-stairs  by  the  run.  We  are  in  Col 
orado,  the  Centennial  and  the  Silver  State.  We  pass 
a  town  as  much  the  child  of  "  H.  G."  as  the  New 
York  Tribune.  It  is  Greeley,  writh  its  hundred  thou 
sand  acres  of  fertile  land  checkered  off  with  trees  and 
traversed  by  trenches  of  water.  Some  years,  it  has 


32  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

kept  a  grasshopper  boarding-house,  and  occasionally 
there  has  been  "a  nipping  and  an  eager  air,"  but  its 
general  prosperity  has  been  signal.  Its  harvests  go 
by  water,  and  so  do  the  people.  Greeley,  therefore, 
is  loafer-proof. 

A  few  more  swift  dives  and  we  reach  Denver,  and 
almost  a  mile  above  the  level  of  the  sea.  It  is  the 
marvel  of  mountain  cities.  Nineteen  years  ago  its 
site  was  an  utter  wilderness.  To-day  it  is  a  young 
metropolis,  the  capital  of  a  state  bound  to  be  opulent 
and  great,  a  population  that  crowds  twenty-five  thou 
sand,  a  vigorous  press,  and  a  great  deal  of  it, —  I  can 
remember  when  a  copy  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  News 
seemed  to  belong  to  a  menagerie  of  grizzly  bears  and 
mountain  lions,  as  much  a  desert  production  as  "  the 
pelican  of  the  wilderness," — the  hub  of  a  railroad  sys 
tem  that  spokes  the  state ;  churches,  schools,  street  rail 
ways,  business,  nerve,  culture,  refinement  and  a  future. 
Set  down  in  it  at  night,  the  gaslight  dazzles  you,  the 
hotel  cries  assail  you,  the  city  astonishes  you.  It  is 
an  eastern  city  to  which  mountain  shoulders  have 
given  a  big  lift.  The  air  is  as  pure  as  the  wine  at 
the  wedding  in  Cana.  It  has  tonic  and  tingle.  It 
is  like  Cowper's  tea:  it  "cheers  but  not  inebriates," 
and  if  there  ever  was  an  awkward,  toggle-jointed  sen 
tence,  it  is  that  analysis  of  the  poet's  "  cup."  The 
American  Hotel  took  us  in,  and  we  were -comfortable 
at  a  shake  of  the  bell — "rest  and  a  shelter,  food  and 
fire."  Let  us  take  pattern  from  Bunyan's  fellow  with 
the  muck-rake  just  at  first,  and  not  look  up,  for  there 


PICTURES    OF   COLORADO.  33 

are  angels  in  the  air,  and  we  may  not   care  to  look 
down. 

~-«~. 

A    PRAIRIE-DOG    ECHO. 

There  are  coughs  and  coughs.  There  are  the  cough 
of  derision,  the  cough  of  doubt,  and  the  cough  of  em 
barrassment ;  the  cough  that  helps  a  halting  speaker 
to  bridge  the  little  cailon  between  one  sentence  he 
is  puzzled  to  end  and  another  he  doesn't  know  how 
to  begin,  where  his  thought  has  tumbled  through  into 
the  gulf  of  bewilderment;  the  racking  cough  that 
goes  before  the  coffin  as  the  drum-major  before  the 
corps.  Let  not  the  compositor  lay  out  the  band  by 
spelling  that  corps  with  an  e.  There  is  yet  another 
cough,  which  may  be  called  the  cough  colloquial  and 
Coloradan.  It  is  more  frequent  in  conversation  than 
profanity  in  the  society  of  canal-horses.  In  your  hotel 
at  Denver  you  hear  people  coughing  along  the  halls, 
—  coughs  masculine,  feminine  and  neuter ;  a  hollow 
cough  in  a  distant  room,  a  hacking  cough  in  the 
office,  a  smothered  cough  in  the  cellar,  a  subdued 
cough  in  the  garret,  a  guttural  cough  which  is  He 
brew,  a  cough  in  the  roof  of  the  mouth  which  is 
like  the  last  note  of  "  the  cock's  shrill  clarion "  in 
Gray's  Elegy.  You  meet  people  of  deliberate  step 
and  feeble  breath  ;  people  whose  respiration  rustles 
like  a  silk  *dress,  or  pants  like  the  ghost  of  a  steam 
boat.  You  enter  the  well-filled  stores,  and  are  served 
by  men  who  punctuate  their  pleasant  courtesy  with 
small  commas  of  cough,  or  bits  of  ahems,  or  interjec- 


34  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

tions  of  sneeze.  Denver  seems  to  be  an  outlying 
province  of  Swift's  Houyhnhnms  —  pronounced  hoo- 
inmz,  with  a  whinnying  quaver  on  the  n — and  you  begin 
to  get  nervous  and  ask  questions.  But  when  you  learn 
that  all  these  coughers  and  wheezers  and  sneezers 
came  up  hither  for  health  not  long  ago,  with  hardly 
strength  enough  to  bark  above  their  breath,  and  that 
they  are  improving  with  might  and  main,  you  are 
comforted  and  composed.  I  meet  eastern  friends  who 
are  perfectly  well,  but  came  here  in  wretched  plight. 
"But  why  don't  you  go  home?"  "Ah,  that's  the  rub! 
We  have  kept  going  home,— slipped  back  every  time, 
like  the  frog  in  the  well,  into  the  old  trouble,  and  re 
turned  to  brace  up."  I  encounter  several  officers  of 
the  same  name,  and  all  Generals  —  there  are  two  in 
sight  this  minute  —  who  can  live  nowhere  else ;  a 
name  as  common  as  John  Smith,  for  it  is  General 
Debility.  It  is  astonishing  how  feverish  a  man  grows 
to  escape  from  a  capital  place  when  he  finds  it  impos 
sible  ;  but  between  death  and  Colorado,  the  last  is 
everybody's  first  choice. 

JEWELRY. 

Lapidaries  abound.  At  almost  every  corner  you 
see  rich  displays  of  Colorado  "specimens,"  from  tiger- 
cats  to  moss-agates.  Rings,  pins,  charms,  chains,  set 
with  smoky  topazes,  agates,  onyxes- — which  are  noth 
ing  like  lynxes  —  garnets,  opals,  amethysts,  jaspers, 
and  bits  of  petrified  woods.  You  see  crystals  of  topaz 
that  weigh  ten  pounds,  and  gulch  and  mountain  are 


PICTURES   OF   COLORADO.  35 

full  of  gem-hunters  who,  armed  with  hammer  and 
knapsack,  take  twenty-mile  tramps  for  the  treasures. 
And  there  is  curious  excitement  in  it  like  watching  a 
game  of  chance.  You  pick  up  a  rusty  gray  stone, 
knock  off  the  clinging  sand,  and  pocket  it  with  a 
doubt.  The  lapidary  may  tell  you  it  is  a  choice  moss- 
agate,  or  a  pebble  just  right  to  shie  at  a  sparrow. 
The  mountain  jewelry  trade  engages  many  hands,  and 
much  skill  and  taste.  A  tourist  abroad  has  a  royal 
way,  you  know,  of  buying  things  for  ten  dollars  that, 
returning  home,  he  finds  he  could  purchase  around 
the  corner  for  eight.  And  so  it  comes  to  pass  there 
are  "millions  in  it." 

When  that  hobble-de-hoy  of  yours  was  a  baby, 
Colorado  was  a  wilderness  that  howled,  and  I  have 
been  attending  the  State  Fair  of  that  same  Colorado. 
The  law  of  limitation  has  apparently  been  suspended ; 
the  cabbages  are  larger  than  many  of  Dr.  Peters' 
asteroids  —  to  the  naked  eye;  three  ears  of  the  clean 
white  corn  would  make  a  club  for  Hercules ;  the 
wheat  is  fit  to  be  asked  for  in  the  universal  petition ; 
the  products  of  the  dairy  are  admirable,  and  I  was 
prepared  to  expect  it,  for  if  ever  a  State  exemplified 
the  proverb,  "  there  is  room  at  the  top,"  it  is  Colorado. 
I  was  in  her  sky  pastures  a  mile  and  a  half  above  the 
sea,  where  thousands  of  cattle  round  up  like  the  moon 
at  the  full.  But  the  geological  department  was  sim 
ply  magnificent.  The  precious  metals  lay  about  in 
boulder,  nugget,  crystal  and  powder.  Almost  every 
description  of  gem  but  the  diamond  mocked  the  rain- 


36  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

bow,  and  lay  about  amid  all  beautiful  shapes  and 
crystals  of  quartz,  lead,  iron  and  coal.  About  every 
letter  of  the  alphabet  that  spells  e-a-r-t-h  was  repre 
sented. 

And  the  people  were  there  by  thousands,  and  then 
more  thousands.  They  are  an  English-speaking  peo 
ple,  they  are  OUT  people,  cordial,  hospitable,  with  the 
first  love  not  died  out  of  them.  What  we  love  at  a 
thousand  miles  away  we  forget  at  three  thousand. 
Seven  days  and  nights  are  a  little  too  long  a  range  for 
Cupid's  common  arrows  unless  he  puts  more  strength 
in  the  bow. 


CHAPTEE  IY. 

"YE  CRAGS  AND  PEAKS.11 

TOU  shall  be  riding  in  a  street-car  through  the 
city  of  Denver  on  a  double-eagle  of  a  day,  clean 
gold  and  fresh  from  the  Mint.  The  trees  have  shaken 
out  all  sail  for  the  summer.  The  bees  are  booming 
about  among  the  flowers.  The  children  are  playing 
in  the  shade.  The  grind  of  the  wheels  of  commerce  — 
and  the  street-car  —  is  in  your  ears,  and  you  look 
through  the  window  into  the  invisible  air,  not  one 
midge  or  mote  to  a  sunbeam.  You  shall  see  an  arc 
of  the  western  horizon  jagged,  scolloped  and  broken 
down  with  mountains  all  dusted  and  drifted  with 
everlasting  snows.  You  shall  see  the  white  billows 
of  innumerable  winters,  as  they  seem  tumbling  on  in 
stupendous  silence  to  whelm  the  world.  If  there 
could  be  such  a  thing,  and  anybody  could  comprehend 
it,  I  should  say  it  is  a  picture  of  thunder.  And  yet 
there  is  no  suggestion  of  tumult,  as  the  words  imply, 
but  rather  of  a  comforting  stability  and  an  unspeak 
able  calm.  Like  death  they  have  "all  seasons  for 
their  own,"  and  stand  and  triumph  over  a  turbulent 
world.  What  surges  must  have  broken  over  the  prow 
of  this  planet  at  some  time,  till  the  Arctic  caught 
them  in  the  act  and  struck  them  with  frost,  and  there 

37 


38  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

they  bang  about  the  bows  of  the  craft  through  the 
ages,  the  pale  corpses  of  the  troubled  and  disastered 
sea.  And  behold,  the  Arctic  is  here  beneath  the  all- 
day  sun  ! 

LONG'S  PEAK. 

Had  the  founders  of  Denver  meant  nothing  more 
than  to  sit  down  and  have  a  lifelong  look  at  the  grand 
est  mountains  on  the  continent,  they  could  not  have 
chosen  better.  Here  is  an  amphitheatre  with  a  sweep 
of  three  hundred  miles  of  peaks  and  crowns  and  towers 
and  crags,  not  one  of  them  withdrawn  beyond  the 
range  of  an  immediate  presence.  In  this  perfect  air 
human  vision  is  as  keen  as  an  eagle's.  The  eye  "  car 
ries"  two  days'  journey  and  does  instant  execution. 
You  sit  in  the  car,  and  looking  northwest  behold  the 
white-helmeted  poll  of  Long's  Peak  fending  off  the 
sky  with  a  lift  of  two  and  two-thirds  miles  above  the 
sea.  It  is  eighty  miles  away,  but  as  palpable  and 
distinct  as  a  picture  on  your  parlor  wall.  You  see 
the  shadows  lying  under  the  lee  of  the  mountain. 
You  see  the  black  gashes  of  old  battles  with  earth 
quake  and  lightning;  you  note  where  the  glaring 
white  tones  down  into  sandstone  red  and  granite 
gray.  You  see  the  maroons  and  the  blue  velvets,  and 
all  the  trickery  and  enchantment  of  light,  distance 
and  shadow.  You  discern  the  timber  line,  where 
vegetation  dwarfs  itself  in  a  fight  for  life  and  a  foot 
hold,  as  if  huge  grenadiers  should  dwindle  do\vn  to 
drummer-boys  in  the  front.  You  can  make  out  the 


39 

columns  of  tall  timber  farther  down.  You  can  watch 
the  clouds  around  the  mountain  shoulders  like  one  of 
the  smothering  ruffs  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  And  it  is 
eighty  miles  away ! 

And  we  talk  of  its  vastness,  while,  if  piled  peak 
upon  peak,  it  would  take  ninety  thousand  Longs  to 
reach  the  moon,  whose  lakes  men  have  meandered 
without  going  from  home.  Ah,  there  is  plenty  of 
room  in  the  sky-parlors,  and  Denver  is  a  splendid 
place  to  study  anatomy  and  count  the  spinous  pro 
cesses  in  the  continent's  backbone. 


Then,  turning  to  the  southwest.  Pike's  Peak,  the 
mighty  milestone  and  monument  to  thousands  of  the 
old  miners,  stands  erect  and  flat-footed  upon  the  world. 
It  is  seventy-five  miles  to  his  base,  but  the  view  is 
as  clean-cut  and  clear  as  a  cameo.  Should  I  tell 
anybody  it  is  13,985  feet  high,  it  would  be  no  very 
satisfying  information  :  should  I  say,  You  must  climb 
about  twelve  miles  to  reach  the  summit,  it  would  be 
better;  but  suppose  the  reader  swings  a  little  tea 
kettle  over  a  fire  on  the  sea-beach,  metonymically, 
it  will  boil  at  212°.  Now  pick  up  kettle,  kindling- 
wood  and  thermometer,  and  begin  your  climb.  At 
5,300  feet  the  water  is  in  active  trouble  at  202°. 
Playing  Longfellow's  young  man,  Excelsior,  again,  at 
the  altitude  of  10,600  feet  it  is  in  a  lively  state  of 
unrest  at  192°.  Another  lift  to  the  top  of  the  Peak, 
and  the  peripatetic  kettle  makes  a  tambourine  of  the 


40  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

lid  and  plays  so  mild  a  tune  that  what  scalded  you 
promptly  and  satisfactorily  down  by  the  sea  will  be 
no  hotter  than  the  tea  strong  enough  to  "  bear  up  an 
egg,"  wherewith  our  grandmothers  chinked  up  their 
hearts  and  limbered  their  tongues  after  a  big  washing. 

How  often  lofty  people  forget  that  ebullition  does 
not  always  mean  earnestness  and  fervor.  Boiling  wa 
ter  is  not  necessarily  hot  water. 

Pike's  Peak  is  not  the  tallest  of  the  white  Carmel 
ites  of  the  mountains,  but  he  is  the  omnipresent  peak 
of  Colorado.  He  follows  you  wherever  you  go.  You 
catch  a  glimpse  of  him  from  the  north  at  a  distance  of 
a  hundred  miles.  Fine  as  a  piece  of  choice  old  china, 
it  is  a  page  of  solid  geometry  torn  from  the  book  and 
magnified  and  glorified;  a  true  cone  of  pure  silver. 
He  confronts  you  on  the  west.  He  is  sixty  miles 
nearer,  but  seems  no  grander  than  before.  He  is  an 
unscalable  peak  still.  Pie  seems  to  be  standing  oft' 
and  on,  and  waiting  for  you  at  all  points.  But  when 
you  draw  near,  Pike  loses  his  symmetry  and  shows 
rugged  and  irregular.  What  seemed  a  stately  white 
tent  for  the  occupancy  of  angels  camping  out  for  a 
picnic  is  turned  into  a  mighty  cairn  of  crags  and 
boulders.  The  peak  is  blunted  to  a  great  stone-yard 
of  eighty  acres,  and  as  poor  plowing  as  a  pyramid. 
But  it  is  a  trick  of  all  mountains  to  strike  their  peaks 
as  you  approach.  It  is  only  when  you  leave  them  in 
the  distance  that  their  swelling  grandeur  returns. 

Tall  mountains  and  great  men  are  alike.  They 
show  best  a  great  way  off.  Never  climb  a  mountain 


41 


to  see  its  peak.      Yon  may  as  well  hope  to  kindle 
lire  with  chips  from  the  North  Pole. 


Taking  the  Denver  and  Rio  Grande  railroad,  a 
cunning  narrow-gauge,  while  its  officers  are  broad- 
gauge,  you  pass  the  Rocky  Range  in  review,  count 
peaks  thick  as  stacks  of  grain  in  a  rich  harvest ;  look 
across  the  upper  edge  and  dry  side  of  rain  storms  to 
the  ridges  beyond ;  run  down  the  line  seventy-six 
miles  to  a  place  called  Colorado  Springs,  because  it  has 
none,  and  to  Colorado  City,  because  it  is  none.  The 
former  is  a  beautiful  prairie  town ;  the  latter,  the  old 
Territorial  capital,  is  shrunken  and  rusty,  the  paint  worn 
off  and  the  pluck  worn  out.  Nothing  but  a  politician 
out  of  business  is  more  forlorn  than  a  deserted  capital. 

A  stage  is  waiting  for  you  at  the  dry  Springs,  like 
a  lighter  around  a  ship,  to  take  you  six  miles  to  Mani- 
tou.  You  step  upon  the  platform,  and  there  stands 
Pike  waiting  for  you.  He  is  only  eighteen  miles  off, 
and  so  you  step  on  his  toes  when  you  touch  the 
ground.  Colorado  Springs  might  be  a  fine  prairie 
village  in  Illinois,  if  it  did  not  happen  to  be  in  Colo 
rado.  It  has  a  frontispiece  of  "specimens"  and 
'"views"  to  tempt  the  tourist.  Heaps  of  geology 
abound,  at  prices  so  long  that  you  need  "  a  pocket 
full  of  rocks"  to  begin  with.  And  then  you  go  up 
hill.  There  is  a  feeling  of  snow  in  the  air,  but  the 
fields  are  in  bloom.  You  look  away  to  the  Peak,  and 

see  a  snowstorm   drawn   in  chalk   lines  between   you 
2* 


42  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

and  the  mountain.  It  is  a  profile,  a  genuine  cartoon, 
of  a  piece  of  winter  weather.  But  that  snow  never 
touches  ground.  It  weeps  itself  away  in  a  slow  drizzle. 
It  is  a  white  shawl  dripping  with  fringes  of  water. 

Manitou,  where  the  springs  really  are,  is  an  ex 
quisite  nestling-place  in  the  mountains.  Of  course, 
Pike  is  standing  before  the  door  of  your  hotel.  The 
great  rock-bowl  of  splendid  soda,  grand  enough  to 
grace  a  symposium  of  the  whole  Pantheon,  is  a  min 
ute's  walk  distant.  Its  edges  are  chased  with  silver- 
white  soda,  for  it  always  sparkles  and  forever  over 
flows.  Up  a  beautiful  glen  are  the  great  iron  springs 
whose  waters  will  turn  a  clear  glass  goblet  into  an 
amber-tinted  beauty,  and  as  fast  colors  as  an  Ethiop's 
skin.  I  think  a  man  might  swallow  water  enough 
in  three  months  to  make  a  respectable  lightning-rod 
of  himself,  and  cheat  those  modest  peripatetics  with 
thunder-gust  bayonets  out  of  a  bargain.  It  is  said 
there  is  sufficient  iron  in  a  man's  blood,  anyhow,  to 
make  a  shot  to  kill  him,  and  why  shouldn't  that 
water  make  hardware  of  him  altogether  ?  There  are 
spacious  hotels,  cozy  cottages,  delightful  lounging- 
places,  shaded  paths  and  beautiful  views  at  Manitou. 
It  is  worth  two  Saratogas  for  health  and  recreation. 

THE    MOUNTAIN    HOME. 

Living  twelve  miles  up  the  world  from  this  retreat 
were  two  valued  friends  of  "  lang  syne,"  and  the  desire 
to  see  them  was  stronger  than  gravitation,  so  up  we 
went  through  the  Ute  Pass  to  find  them.  The  Pass 

o 

is  a  narrow  canon   overhung  with    rocks,    overarched 


43 

with  trees,  now  roofed  with  not  more  than  twenty 
feet  of  blue  sky,  now  turning  under  hoods  of  crags, 
now  out  into  little  bays  full  of  tangled  luxuriance. 
Aspens  all  along  shake  in  their  shoes,  and  pines  give 
their  same  old  sigh.  The  splendid  road  has  more 
crooks  than  the  horn  that  jarred  down  Jericho's  walls, 
and  it  goes  through  throats  of  places  that  make  you 
feel  for  your  windpipe.  We  met  two  things  when 
climbing  the  Pass.  One  was  a  storm  that  threw  one 
solitary  thunder  down  the  gorge  from  top  to  bottom 
without  striking  a  stair.  It  was  startling  as  if  a  rifle- 
cannon  should  call  you  to  breakfast.  The  other  was 
an  eccentric,  sparkling  stream  that  leaped  and  flashed 
from  ledge  to  ledge  at  our  left.  Here,  it  came  fifty 
feet  at  a  tumble ;  there,  it  splintered  like  a  lance 
against  a  crag;  yonder,  it  darted  bright  as  silver; 
now,  it  lurked  black  as  ink;  then,  it  was  fleecy  as 
Jason's  sheep;  again,  it  was  smooth  as  a  looking- 
glass.  It  confronted  you,  it  flanked  you,  it  was  an 
incessant  surprise,  and  a  success  also. 

So  we  climbed  through,  and  out  into  the  rolling 
country,  but  always  up,  meeting  greasy  Mexicans  with 
long  double-files  of  lean  mules  and  leaner  oxen  draw 
ing  ore  down  to  the  railroad ;  meeting  solitary  horse 
men ;  seeing  cabins  and  pleasant  homes  here  and 
there,  until  we  were  nine  thousand  feet  above  the  sea, 
and  that  Pike  was  waiting  for  us  at  the  end  of  our 
journey  !  We  saw  the  scar  of  a  trail,  and  a  dished 
landscape,  like  a  foot-bath  at  the  feet  of  the  Peak, 
and  a  long,  low,  broad-brimmed  house  with  a  home- 


44  SUMMER- SAVORY. 

like  look  and  neat  out-buildings  about  it,  and  a  white 
tent  like  a  big  mushroom.  It  was  our  friend's  eyrie, 
and  we  were  made  welcome. 

Soon  night  came  up,  for  in  the  mountains  it  never 
comes  down.  Had  Homer — who  was  Homer? — been 
a  Coloradan,  he  would  never  have  said  the  god  "came 
down  like  night."  First,  the  valley  below  filled  with 
darkness;  then,  the  basin  we  were  served  up  in;  then, 
the  dish  overflowed,  and  the  tide  of  shadow  slowly 
rose  along  the  mountain  sides.  We  were  over  head 
and  ears,  fairly  drowned  in  night,  but  Pike's  snow- 
cap  yet  glittered  in  the  sun.  The  unclouded  sky 
had  not  blossomed  out  with  celestial  asters.  By-and- 
by  the  mountain  was  up  to  his  shoulders  in  dark 
ness,  and  then  he  doffed  his  white  cap  for  a  turban 
of  red  kerchief  that  slowly  faded  to  a  dim,  cold  gray, 
and  it  was  night  all  over.  Then  the  voices  of  noc 
turnal  birds  startled  the  stillness,  the  long  whine  of 
a  mountain  lion  up  the  canon,  the  bay  of  a  dog  down 
the  valley,  and  a  score  of  indescribable  rustlings  and 
whisperings,  made  the  silence  lonely  and  audible. 

We  had  climbed  out  of  the  world  of  railroad  and 
telegraph.  We  had  gotten  into  the  back  chamber  of 
the  century.  And  —  oh,  the  delight  of  it!  —  we  had 
escaped  the  hammer  and  the  clangor,  the  banging 
and  the  twanging  of  the  wires  ever  clanging,  the 
wires  ever  wrangling.  That  forty-fingered  girl  with 
her  piano  had  not  found  us  out.  There  was  noth 
ing  above  us  but  the  signal  station  and  the  stars. 
It  was  a  new  sensation. 


45 

Entering  the  house  we  sat  down  like  four  signs 
of  the  zodiac  around  the  generous  fireplace,  and 
torches  of  light  pine  flung  their  clear  white  splendors 
everywhere,  till  the  house  shone  like  an  engine's 
headlight.  Talk  of  the  golden  illumination  of  wax 
candles,  and  the  glare  of  gas  chandeliers!  There  is 
nothing  so  brilliantly  beautiful  as  the  fat  pine  fire 
by  night.  It  is  more  than  heat  and  light.  It  is 
cheerfulness,  comfort,  company  and  content.  The 
remembrance  of  that  fireside  shines  like  an  evening 
star  in  the  mountains.  May  those  that  kindled  it 
ever  have  an  abiding  star  for  all  the  nights  of  their 
two  lives,  that  "goes  not  down  nor  hides  obscured 
among  the  tempest  of  the  sky,  but  melts  away  into 
the  light  of  heaven."  That  far-off  scene  is  as  near 
as  the  left  breast.  The  two  trout-ponds,  gorgeous 
with  fish  that  must  have  been  caught  out  in  the 
crimson  and  golden  rain  of  Danae  and  been  speckled 
for  life;  the  prairie-dog  village  up  the  road;  —  they 
were  "not  at  home,"  the  four-footed  prevaricators! — 
the  great  furnaces  of  lime  and  charcoal,  the  ebony 
and  alabaster  of  the  mountains ;  the  clear  sweet  air, 
that  you  want  a  great  deal  of  if  you  run  a  race ; 
the  complete  escape  from  the  elbows  and  turbulence 
of  the  world ;  the  boyish  expectancy,  on  tip-toe  for 
something  to  prowl  down  the  canon,  or  lumber  out 
of  the  woods,  or  steal  forth  from  the  cleft  rocks,  say 
a  cinnamon  bear  or  a  mountain  lion  ;  the  stateliness 
of  Pike;  the  friends  we  found  there; — all  make  an 
enduring  picture  and  a  delicious  memory. 


CHAPTER  V. 

"THE  GARDEN  OF  THE  GODS." 

AN  hour's  drive  from  Manitou  brought  us  into  an 
J~\  up-hill  and  down-dale  region  full  of  rocks  in 
all  grotesque  shapes  and  tints;  red,  gray,  pink,  yel 
low,  dead  white;  the  eloquent  evidences  of  disturb 
ances  in  days  so  long  ago  that  almanacs  do  not  name 
them,  when  something  put  a  shoulder  to  the  strata 
of  rocks  and  lifted  them  out  to  the  light;  and  here 
they  are,  gnawed  by  the  elements,  carved  in  fantastic 
forms  innumerable.  The  lower  stratum  of-  sandstone 
was  more  edible  than  the  upper  that  rests  upon  it, 
and  so  winds,  rains,  frosts  and  suns  have  eaten  it 
out,  and  left  necks  upon  which  are  mounted  masses 
of  the  more  durable  rock,  curved,  rounded,  poised  and 
perched  upon  the  lean,  long,  uncanny  necks. 

Think  of  a  multitude  of  stone  toadstools,  six,  ten, 
twelve  feet  in  diameter;  of  Chinamen's  hats  done  in 
pink,  yellow,  red,  with  mossy  rosettes;  of  awkward 
sun-bonnets  weighing  two  tons  apiece,  always  slipping 
off  and  never  falling;  of  stone  bowls,  big  as  caldron 
kettles,  bottom  side  up  on  pillars ;  of  ogreish  heads 
wrapped  about  with  gray  turbans ;  of  loaves  of  over 
done  bread,  two  hundred  pounds  apiece,  set  upon  the 
rocks  to  cool ;  of  a  crop  of  capped  and  hooded  gate- 

46 


47 

posts  waiting  to  be  harvested ;  of  petrified  dumb-bells 
such  as  Jupiter  might  have  practiced  with  before 
throwing  his  thunderbolts ;  of  a  flock  of  witches  in 
red  tatters  squatting  around  in  dumb  petrefaction ; 
of  masses  of  rock  as  big  as  a  house  poised  upon  stones 
the  size  of  a  pumpkin ;  of  whole  families  of  Leaning 
Towers  —  no  end  of  Pisas  —  accenting  everything  in  a 
manner  more  emphatic  than  delightful;  —  think  of  all 
these  at  once,  and  you  will  know  something  of  this 
sandstone  nightmare. 

In  and  out  we  go  among  these  queer  leavings  and 
carvings  of  what  were  once  solid  books  of  stone.  Did 
you  ever  see  an  old  volume  that  the  book-worm  had 
tunneled  and  honeycombed?  Do  you  remember  how 
spangly  the  maple-sugar  was  when  ladled  out  upon 
snow  or  dropped  into  water?  It  is  a  jumble  of  ideas, 
and  so  are  these  sandstone  jokes,  jests,  frolics  and 
fritters.  Here  is  Mrs.  Grundy's  head,  her  chisel  of  a 
chin  and  her  incisive  nose  threatening  each  other 
across  a  long  unhemmed  mouth;  and  tongue,  head, 
cap  and  all,  dumb  and  motionless  in  a  blessed  sand 
stone  silence.  Alas,  that  it  is  not  the  ubiquitous  lady 
indeed,  that  no  more  the  question  should  be  heard, 
"What  will  Mrs.  Grundy  say?"  There  is  Napoleon's 
hat.  It  weighs  five  hundred  pounds  if  it  weighs  an 
ounce.  There  is  a  prehistoric  look  about  things,  and 
you  feel  as  if  you  are  four  hundred  years  old  yourself. 
You  are  afraid  some  of  those  Saracen  heads  will  cry 
"Bismillah! "-  —  the  baker  come  out  to  look  after  his 
loaves  —  the  toads  leap  forth  and  sit  upon  their 


48  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

stools  —  Mrs.  Grundy  prove  not  to  be  so  very  dead, 
or  you  turn  into  old  red  sandstone  for  other  tourists 
to  look  at  and  laugh  about. 

THE    GOLDEN    GATE. 

We  are  nearing  the  gate  of  the  "Garden  of  the 
Gods.  Some  people  have  a  masterly  faculty  for  mis 
naming  things.  Whether  it  is  a  baby  or  a  bowlder 
to  be  christened,  the  names  they  bestow  could  be 
interchanged  without  exciting  a  suspicion  that  either 
had  been  wronged.  "  Garden  of  the  Gods  "  is  about 
as  appropriate  as  Orchard  of  Hesperus  or  the  Valley 
of  Easselas.  It  suggests  nothing,  and  it  means  all  it 
suggests.  Here  is  a  park  of  five  hundred  acres  of 
land,  mountain-locked  on  the  north  and  west,  moated 
with  canons  on  the  south,  and  walled  with  red  sand 
stone  on  the  east,  spread  with  grassy  carpets  here  and 
there,  and  dotted  with  little  pines  and  other  vegetable 
stragglers.  You  approach  a  gateway  two  hundred 
feet  wide,  with  red  sandstone  towers  three  hundred 
feet  high,  covered  with  sculptures  that  no  man  can 
read,  and  massive  and  rugged  as  are  no  other  portals 
in  the  world. 

In  the  center  of  the  way  is  a  red  pillar  twenty-five 
feet  high,  which  was  probably  the  horse-block  whence 
the  Titanesses  stepped  to  the  pillions  behind  their 
lords  and  masters  when  they  went  their  morning 
rides.  You  can  see  the  walled-up  windows  whence 
the  old  warders  looked  forth.  You  can  see  escutch 
eons  that  no  herald  can  make  out ;  chimneys  standing 


49 

alone ;  towers  dismantled ;  alcoves,  broken  arches, 
pinnacles,  castle  ruins,  arid  all  red  as  porphyry.  And 
a  little  way  off  you  see  parallel  walls  that  are  marble 
white,  and  show  in  fine  contrast  with  the  cinnabar 
tints  around. 

Not  long  ago  I  saw  photographs  of  the  ruins  of 
Ba'albek,  and  I  said,  a  greater  than  Ba'albek  is  here ; 
these  Titanic  castles  and  fortresses  wrecked  and 
ruined,  and  greater  in  their  destruction  than  the 
completed  architecture  of  the  Wrens  and  Walters  of 
modern  times.  Anybody  can  rear  castles  from  foun 
dation  to  turret,  but  only  one  architect  can  build  ruins 
so  grand,  and  his  name  is  Upheaval. 

It  was  a  splendid  morning  when  we  stood  in  front 
of  the  gateless  Gaza,  with  its  green  lawn.  A  couple 
of  men  of  standard  stature  walked  through,  and 
turned  dwarfs  as  they  went.  At  the  right  was  a 
monumental  group  such  as  Cruikshank  might  have 
designed  as  the  Graveyard  of  the  Grotesque.  But  we 
halted  in  front  of  the  grand  entrance.  There,  set  in 
a  red  frame,  though  eighteen  miles  away,  was  a  royal 
presence.  A  vast  white  pavilion  rose  against  the  blue 
sky,  as  if  the  Titans  had  gone  into  grand  encampment. 
Never  was  a  fairer  picture  mounted  in  a  more  befit- 
•  ting  frame.  All  galleries  of  art  fade  into  insignifi 
cance.  All  works  of  the  old  scenic  masters  are  trifles 
as  you  gaze  upon  this.  It  was  so  restful  and  com 
plete.  It  filled  the  eye  and  the  soul  as  well.  But 
it  was  not  like  Longfellow's  pavilion  when  he  sang : 


50  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

"  But  when  the  old  cathedral  bell 

Proclaimed  the  morning  prayer, 
The  white  pavilion  rose  and  fell 
On  the  alarmed  air." 

This  tent  was  motionless  as  the  arch  of  heaven,  for 
it  was  PIKE'S  PEAK  in  a  frame  of  porphyry  ! 

Let  us  take  the  noble  legend  of  the  State  of 
Colorado  and  engrave  it  beneath  the  picture :  Nil 
sine  Numine. 

My  recollections  of  Colorado  are  of  the  pleasantest. 
I  am  glad  I  have  lived  to  see  her  born  into  the  Union, 
and  as  I  took  occasion  to  write  a  year  or  two  ago,  in 
alluding  to  the  Centennial  Exposition  : 

Egypt!   Earth's  own  eldest. daughter, 

Colorado,  silver  bride! 
One  mountain-born  and  one  of  water, 

Eldest  —  youngest  —  side  by  side. 
By  one  star  more  Centennial  given, 

Colorado's  Silver  State 
Has  reinforced  the  mimic  heaven, 

And  the  Flag  strikes  THIRTY-EIGHT! 


CHAPTER  VI 

HATS. 

THE  manner  in  which  certain  excellent  people 
lifted  their  hats  forty  years  ago  is  of  little  mo 
ment  ;  of  too  little,  you  must  think,  to  need  a  pair 
of  adjectives,  reverently  and  carefully,  to  describe 
it,  but  why  "carefully"?  They  were  not  silk  hats, 
but  either  felt  or  genuine  beaver  that  had  made  jack 
ets  for  the  four-footed  dam-builders  and  millwrights; 
beaver  that  would  last  four-and-twenty  years  without 
shedding  their  fur. 

Take  the  roomy  bell-crowns,  that  flared  like  an 
old-time  wooden  churn  bottom  side  up.  They  were 
safes  and  postoffices.  In  the  garrets  of  those  hats 
were  deposited  the  letters  received  in  a  whole  quar 
ter,  the  huge  fellows  about  as  long  and  broad  as  a 
brick.  There  notes  of  hand,  memoranda,  accounts,  were 
filed  away.  The  men,  most  of  them,  stood  sturdily 
on  their  legs  in  those  days,  and  so  were  not  top- 
heavy  in  the  least.  A  red  bandana  sparsely  dotted 
with  white  spots  was  also  carried  in  the  hat.  When 
the  castor  was  in  position,  there  were  three  strata  of 
commodities :  first,  letters  and  papers ;  second,  textile 
fabrics;  last  and  lowest,  the  head.  There  were  two 
ways  of  unroofing  a  man  without  emptying  the  gar- 

51 


52  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

ret;  either  he  removed  the  hat,  giving  at  the  instant 
a  little  dock  of  the  head,  or  he  put  up  a  hand  as 
he  careened  the  beaver,  ready  to  catch  whatever  might 
tumble.  The  latter  looked  'a  little  awkward,  since 
it  gave  him  the  appearance  of  wanting  to  catch 
something  alive,  that  might  lurk  in  the  loft, 

Nothing  you  wear  comes  to  resemble  you  so 
nearly  as  the  hat;  not  the  "soft"  variety;  that  is  as 
stupid  and  devoid  of  character  as  a  meal-bag;  but 
the  firmer  fabric  that  "  sets  itself  aright,"  and  is  grad 
ually  fashioned  to  your  phrenology,  flaring  out  at 
your  caution,  curving  away  in  front  of  your  percep- 
tives,  or  rounding  out  behind  your  love  of  children 
and  —  grown  people. 

You  have  worn  for  a  minute  one  of  those  brass 
hats,  about  as  cumbrous  as  a  king's  crown,  that,  as 
the  hatter  adjusts  it  upon  your  head,  dots  a  profile, 
a  sort  of  ground  plan  of  the  cerebral  regions,  upon 
a  piece  of  paper  in  the  top  of  it.  Did  you  much 
admire  that  line-fence  of  your  faculties  thus  por 
trayed  ?  Sometimes  it  is  shaped  like  the  print  of  a 
moccasin  with  an  awkward  foot  in  it,  and  sometimes 
like  the  anatomy  of  a  sap-trough.  A  double  Yankee 
inheritance  would  never  enable  you  to  guess  what  it 
was  meant  to  picture,  whether  a  kidney-bean  or  the 
track  of  a  plantigrade,  but  a  human  head  never! 

Hats,  like  their  wearers,  have  grown  ephemeral. 
Once  they  lived  as  long  as  good  dogs  live,  but  now 
their  average  age  is  about  six  months.  I  respect  a 
hat  that  has  seen  service,  that  has  been  worn  evenly 


HATS.  53 

and  steadily  winter  and  summer,  that  has  a  whitish 
suspicion  of  edges,  and  has  so  accommodated  itself 
to  the  wearer  and  grown  nobby  with  his  faculties, 
that  he  quite  forgets  he  is  not  bareheaded.  Find 
that  hat  drifting  about  on  the  mill-pond,  and  you 
immediately  know  whose  body  you  are  going  to  drag 
for.  There  is  no  more  poetry  in  a  hat  of  the  firm 
variety  than  there  is  in  a  half-joint  of  stove-pipe. 
You  cannot  fancy  the  hero  of  a  hundred  battles  in 
a  silk  hat.  The  very  name  of  the  article  has  a  dis 
reputable  rhyming  acquaintance  with  such  words  as 
bat,  cat,  flat,  gnat,  rat,,  scat  and  sprat.  "Stick  a 
feather  in  it,"  and  it  is  hat  still.  Wreathe  it  like 
Billy  Barlow's: 

"All  round  my  hat  I  wears  a  weeping  willow," 
but  it  will  not  do. 

"He  put  his  hat  upon  his  head, 
And  walked  into  the  Strand, 
And  there  he  met  another  man 
Whose  hat  was  in  his  hand." 

Two  hats  in  the  same  stanza,  and  two  men  with 
immortal  souls  engaged  in  carrying  those  hats  in  two 
different  ways,  is  too  much.  But  make  them  helmets 
and  call  them  Greeks,  or  plumed  bonnets  arid  call 
them  Scots,  or  shadow-shedding  sombreros  and  name 
them  bandits,  and  there  is  an  element  of  romance 
and  poetry  that  may  possibly  float  the  article  on  the 
rhythmic  current.  The  tall  hats  of  the  Puritans  have 
no  more  grace  than  a  funnel,  and  the  leafless  pictures 


54  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  freezing  about  Plymouth  Eock 
and  towering  up  in  their  peaked  hats  always  reminded 
me  of  something  rank  run  up  to  seed  in  the  fall. 

Figuring  in  political  history,  the  hat  has  been 
garnished  with  the  black  cockade  and  the  buck-tail. 
The  crape  "weeper"  used  to  swing  from  it,  and,  as 
the  mourner  walked,  sway  in  a  slow  and  pensive  way 
from  side  to  side,  like  a  black  rudder  without  a 
helmsman.  It  is  reverently  lifted  to  sorrow,  beauty 
and  death.  It  is  whirled  about  the  head  in  visible 
huzzas,  and  shied  enthusiastically  into  the  air  like  a 
rocket.  It  is  held  forth  for  alms,  and,  muffled  with 
a  handkerchief  lest  you  should  hear  the  jingle  of 
ignoble  pennies,  is  passed  about  in  the  beneficent 
congregation.  The  mettled  racers  used  to  burst  from 
the  grand  stand  at  the  "  drop  of  the  hat." 

One  family  in  the  British  Empire  has  the  privi 
lege  of  appeai-ing  covered  in  the  presence  of  royalty, 
and  all  the  old  Quakers  wore  the  broad-brim  unre- 
buked  in  the  presence  of  God  and  man. 

When  the  wearer  cocks  his  hat  over  his  right  eye 
brow  it  means  defiance,  if  it  doesn't  mean  —  a  fool. 
If  he  sets  it  squarely  upon  his  head  and  pulls  it 
down  like  a  percussion  cap  to  the  tips  of  his  ears,  it 
is  determination,  if  it  is  not — doggedness.  Let  down 
the  hammer  upon  that  hat,  and  he  will  explode.  If 
he  throws  it  back  upon  the  nape  of  his  neck  like 
the  calash-top  of  a  chaise,  it  signifies  a  careless  inde 
pendence  and  a  propensity  to  "  face  the  music  "  with 
his  whole  countenance, 


CIIAPTEE  VII. 

THE  MEN  OF  GROOVES. 

is  a  fatal  facility  about  grooves.  They 
JL  are  wonderfully  easy  things  to  run  in.  They 
are  labor-savers  and  man-savers.  They  save  time, 
trouble,  bravery  and  brains.  It  is  as  if  rivers  ran 
down  stream  both  ways,  and  oars  had  never  been 
invented. 

The  groove-bound  doctor  attacks  the  patient  in 
typhoid  fever  according  to  a  formula  so  old  as  to  be 
mossy,  and  the  result  is  often  something  else  that  is 
mossy,  if  you  give  it  time  enough,  to  wit,  a  grave. 
The  medicine  and  the  disease  are  too  much  for  the 
poor  fellow,  and  between  them  he  comes  to  grief  and 
"goes  to  grass."  Venture  to  suggest  to  this  vendor 
of  antiquities  the  virtue  of  good  nursing  and  nourish 
ing  food,  and  incessant  watching  that  nature  has  fair 
play,  and  he  denounces  it  as  the  wisdom  of  old  women 
which  is  foolishness  with  mummies.  The  doctrine  is, 
better  die  according  to  law  than  live  according  to 
grandma!  The  physician  who  studies  his  patient  like 
a  new  book ;  who  reads  his  peculiarities  as  if  they 
were  in  print ;  who  sees  wherein  this  case  differs  from 
any  other ;  who  recognizes  the  fact  that  man  is  not  a 
stereotype,  and  who  finds  his  treatment  less  in  the 

55 


56  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

pink-and-senna  scented  library  than  by  the  bedside; 
who  dares  prescribe  what  he  thinks  rather  than  what 
he  remembers;  who  believes  that  books  record  other 
men's  experiences,  and  can  be  verified  or  condemned 
only  by  his  own,-*— this  man  can  never  be  a  man  of 
grooves. 

THE    TEACHER. 

The  most  useless  of  stupidities  is  the  teacher  who 
is  a  groove-runner;  who  has  swallowed  text-books 
without  digesting  them,  and  feeds  his  pupils  with  the 
morsels  as  old  pigeons  feed  squabs,  until,  like  himself, 
they  are  all  victims  of  mental  dyspepsia,  which  is  a 
curious  synonym  for  education.  Children  subjected 
to  such  diet  are  as  likely  to  get  fat  and  strong  as  so 
many  grist-mill  hoppers,  that  swallow  the  grain  with 
out  grinding  the  kernel.  Such  teachers  forget  that 
one,  like  Judith's  sister  "  Feeble-Mind "  in  Cooper's 
novel,  may  have  a  prodigious  memory.  'Who  has  riot 
known  a  fool  who  remembered  everything  he  heard 
and  just  as  he  heard  it,  who  could  run  up  and  down 
the  multiplication-table  like  a  cat  upon  a  ladder,  and 
rattle  off  rule  after  rule  without  'missing  a  word,  and 
that  was  all  there  was  of  it  —  he  was  a  fool  still? 
A  good  memory  built  into  a  well-made  intellectual 
structure  is  a  noble  blessing,  but  that  same  memory 
with  nothing  to  match  it  is  like  a  garret  without  any 
house  under  it ;  a  receptacle  of  odds  and  ends,  that 
are  worth  less  than  those  papers  that  losers  of  lost 
pocket-books  are  always  advertising  for,  "of  no  value 
except  to  the  owner." 


THE   MEN    OF   GROOVES.  57 

Take  English  grammar  under  the  man  of  grooves. 
Learning  to  swim  upon  kitchen  tables,  buying  a  kit  of 
tools  and  so  setting  up  for  carpenters,  are  all  of  a 
piece  with  his  grammar.  Hear  them  defining  a  prep'- 
sition  as  "connecting  words,  and  showing  the  relation 
between  them,"  when  not  one  pupil  in  a  hundred 
ever  finds  out  whether  it  is  a  blood  relation  or  a 
relation  by  marriage.  Hear  them  parse:  "John 
strikes  Charles.  'John'  is  a  noun,  masculine  gender, 
third  person,  because  it's  spoken  of,  sing'lar  number, 
nom'native  case  t'  'strikes.'  'Strikes'  is  an  irreg'lar, 

o          ' 

active,  trans'tive  verb,  strike,  struck,  stricken,  indica 
tive  mode,  present  tense,  third  person  singular,  and 
'grees  with  John.  Verb  must  'gree  with  its  nom'native 
case  V  number  and  person.  'Charles'  is  a  noun, 
masculine  gender,  sing'lar  number,  third  person, 
'cause  it's  spoken  of,  objective  case,  and  governed  by 
'  strikes.'  Active  verbs  govern  the  objective  case  — 
please,  sir,  S'mantha  and  Joe  is  a-makin'  faces ! ' " 
And  all  in  the  same  breath !  What  ardor !  What 
intellectual  effort !  What  grooves !  Meanwhile, 
grammars  mended,  amended  and  emended,  multiply. 
There  are  four  things  anybody  can  do :  teach  a  school, 
drive  a  horse,  edit  a  newspaper,  and  make  a  grammar. 
Meanwhile  the  same  old  high  crimes  and  misde 
meanors  against  the  statutes  are  daily  committed. 
This  comes  of  grooves  and  the  lack  of  a  professorship 
of  common  sense. 

Take  geography.  The  young  lady  fresh  from 
school,  who  from  a  steamer's  deck  was  shown  an. 


58  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

island,  and  who  asked  with  sweet  simplicity,  "Is 
there  water  the  other  side  of  it  ? "  had  all  the  dis 
covered  islands  from  the  Archipelago  to  Madagascar 
ranged  in  grooves  and  at  her  tongue's  end.  "  Didn't 
you  know,"  said  the  father  to  his  son,  who  expressed 
great  surprise  at  some  simple  fact,  "didn't  you  know 
it  ? "  "  Oh,  no,"  replied  the  little  fellow  ;  "  I  learned 
it  a  great  while  ago,  but  I  never  knew  it  before ! " 

Take  arithmetic.  Show  a  boy  who  has  finished 
the  book,  and  can  give  chapter  and  verse  without 
winking,  a  pile  of  wood  and  tell  him  to  measure  it, 
and  ten  to  one  he  is  puzzled.  And  yet  he  can  pile 
up  wood  in  the  book,  and  give  you  the  cords  to  a 
fraction,  but  then  there  isn't  a  stick  of  fuel  to  be 
measured,  and  that  makes  it  easier,  because  he  can  sit 
in  his  groove,  and  keep  a  wood-yard.  "  So  you  have 
completed  arithmetic,"  said  the  late  Professor  Page, 
of  the  State  Normal  School,  to  a  new-come  candidate 
for  an  advanced  position;  "please  tell  me  how  much 
thirteen  and  a  half  pounds  of  pork  will  cost  at  eleven 
and  a  half  cents  a  pound?"  The  price  was  chalked 
out  in  a  twinkling.  "  Good,"  said  the  professor, 
"now  tell  me  what  it  would  cost  if  the  pork  were 
half  fat?"  The  chalk  lost  its  vivacity,  the  youth 
faced  the  blackboard  doubtingly,  and  finally  turning 
to  the  teacher  with  a  face  all  spider-webbed  with  the 
lines  of  perplexity,  and  with  a  little  touch  of  con 
tempt  at  the  simplicity  of  the  "  sum,"  and,  possibly, 
of  himself,  he  said,  "  It  seems  easy  enough,  but  I  don't 
know  what  to  do  with  the  fat ! "  That  fellow  was 


THE   MEN"   OF    GROOVES.  59 

not  a  fool,  but  a  groove-runner.  A  little  condition 
was  thrown  in  that  he  never  saw  in  the  book,  and 
that'  groove  of  his  had  never  been  lubricated  with 
fat  pork. 

THE    CLERGYMAN. 

Clergymen  are  liable  to  preach  in  grooves ;  to 
employ  certain  hereditary  forms  of  speech  that  blunt 
the  edge  of  expectation ;  forms  whose  first  words 
suggest  their  followers  to  every  hearer,  and  leave 
nothing  to  be  listened  for.  Men  should  preach  in 
types,  and  not  in  stereo-types.  Words  should  not  be 
uttered  in  blocks  of  phrases.  It  is  dull  and  lumber 
ing  business.  The  art  of  putting  things  is  a  great 
art.  Truth  is  old,  but  then  in  what  numberless  lights 
it  may  be  revealed !  Truth  is  the  sun.  He  shines 
with  one  steady,  everlasting  beam,  but  behold  the  glo 
ries  of  refraction,  that  give  the  color  and  the  beauty 
of  the  world !  Preachers  should  be  refractors.  They 
should  see  the  Bow  from  the  mountain-top  as  well 
as  from  the  plain.  Hope  dwells  in  the  valleys,  but 
Faith  is  a  mountaineer.  They  should  sometimes  see 
the  circle  swept  and  finished, —  the  seal  of  the  new 
covenant  complete  as  the  marriage-ring  of  Earth  and 
Heaven.  There  is  no  grooved  route  to  such  van 
tage-ground  of  view, —  such  glimpses  of  glory. 

Dionysius,  the  tyrant,  has  been  sufficiently  de 
nounced,  but  the  tyranny  of  grooves  has  never  been 
written.  Several  years  ago  I  spent  a  day  or  two  in 
the  engraving  department  of  the  Treasury.  The  men 
sat  in  rows  and  in  silence  before  a  well-lighted  table. 


60  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

One  was  at  work  upon  a  Pilgrim,  and  another  giv 
ing  Pocahontas  a  friendly  touch.  But  what  inter 
ested  me  most  was  this :  you  remember  the  fine  par 
allel  lines  that  used  to  cross  the  postal  currency,  like 
fairy  furrows.  The  lines  grew  dim  with  frequent 
use,  and  it  was  necessary  to  sharpen  them  by  deep 
ening  the  impression.  There  sat  a  man  with  a  worn 
plate  before  him,  and  a  little  instrument  like  a  gang- 
plow.  He  set  it  carefully  upon  the  plate,  and  ran 
it  through  those  miniature  furrows.  Should  he  vary 
a  hair's-breadth,  the  plate  would  be  defaced  and  ruined  ; 
but  he  struck  the  groove  with  unerring  accuracy  every 
time.  He  said,  "  I  hear  the  tool  fall  into  the  furrow, 
and  then  I  run  it  right  through."  I  bent  my  ear 
to  listen,  but  no  sound  even  as  loud  as  the  tick  of  a 
dying  watch  rewarded  the  effort.  To  my  unprac- 
ticed  sense  there  was  no  sound  at  all.  The  man 
laughed  and  said,  "  Neither  could  I  at  first,  but  now 
I  hear  it  as  plain  as  a  hammer!" 

Grooves  are  subtle  things  sometimes,  and  a  man, 
like  that  gang-plow,  strikes  into  them  without  know 
ing  it,  until  he  can  travel  nowhere  else  without  spoil 
ing  his  work.  Denunciation  of  this  "  cold  and  un 
friendly  world "  is  one  of  the  groove  formulas,  and 
some  clergymen  almost  make  us  fancy  they  think 
the  Devil  made  it,  and  not  the  Lord,  who  pronounced 
it  "good."  There  is  another  and  a  better  world,  but 
let  us  thank  God  for  this,  the  very  best  world  we 
have  ever  been  in. 

"  Life's  field  will  yield  as  we  make  it, 
A  harvest  of  thorns  or  flowers." 


THE    MEN    OF    GROOVES.  61 

It  is  wonderfully  easy  to  talk  in  a  groove.  A 
noted  professor  of  Hebrew  went  to  Germany  to  spend 
a  year  or  two  in  study.  One  of  bis  associates  of  the 
faculty  began  to  pray  him  on  to  the  ocean  before  he 
had  left  New  York.  It  was  a  new  phrase  introduced 
into  his  chapel  petition,  u  Our  brother  on  the  briny 
deep."  It  was  the  Atlantic  ocean  surrounded  by 
prayer.  And  so  all  autumn  and  winter  he  kept  that 
unfortunate  man  "on  the  briny  deep,"  like  the  Fly 
ing  Dutchman,  in  all  weathers,  until  when  the  pro 
fessor  struck  salt  water  there  was,  to  say  the  least  of 
it,  a  very  cheerful  cast  of  countenance  among  the  stu 
dents  in  the  chapel.  And  there  he  kept  the  He 
braist  on  shipboard  while  he  was  walking  Unter  der 
Linden ;  while  he  was  buried  in  a  parchment  volume 
as  big  as  a  trunk ;  while  he  was  smoking  a  pipe  at 
Heidelberg;  and  when  he  was  happily  home  again, 
it  almost  seemed  as  if  it  might  require  a  steam-pump 
to  get  the  "  briny  deep  "  out  of  that  prayer. 

THE    GROOVE    LETTER. 

The  average  letter  always  runs  in  a  groove.  It 
has  no  more  individuality  or  heart  than  a  writ  of 
ejectment.  A  letter  should  read  as  a  good  friendly 
talk  sounds,  but  it  seldom  does.  It  begins  with  a 
"  Dear  Sir,"  when  the  writer  wouldn't  grieve  him 
self  to  death  were  you  sent  to  state's  prison  for  life. 
He  addresses  you  through  three  mortal  pages,  and 
concludes  with  a  "  Yery  respectfully,"  or  a  "  Cordial 
ly,"  or  some  other  thing  equally  absurd.  They  mean 


62  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

as  much,  these  cast-iron  beginnings  and  endings,  as  a 
Bantam's  top-knot,  or  a  ringlet  in  a  pig's  tail.  Why 
do  not  people  write  as  they  feel?  Grooves.  Women 
are  better  letter-writers  than  men,  because  honester. 
If  a  woman  despises  you,  she  never  loves  you  in  a 
letter. )  Her  heart  is  too  near  the  point  of  her  pen. 
There  is  no  more  relation  between  the  expressions  of 
courtesy  that  adorn  letters  and  the  real  sentiment  of 
the  writers,  than  there  is  between  the  shingle  rooster 
on  the  ridge  of  the  barn  and  that  brood  of  yellow- 
legged  chickens  in  the  door-yard. 

ENTHUSIASM. 

Grooves  are  fatal  to  discovery  and  invention.  No 
body  who  follows  them  ever  ventures  "  across  lots " 
for  new  results.  The  man  of  grooves  always  traveled 
the  two  sides  of  the  triangle  in  great  stupidity  and 

A 

content  |_  _B  It  was  somebody  else  that  struck  across, 
lined  the  hypothenuse,  and  discovered  the  shortest  dis- 

A 

tance  from  A  to  B.  |\E  The  world  smiles  at  and 
about  enthusiasts  a  great  deal,  and  upon  them  a  very 
little,  but  it  owes  them  a  debt  it  can  never  pay,  for 
all  that.  Enthusiasm  is  wonderfully  contagious.  How 
pupils  catch  it  from  an  earnest,  all-souled  teacher! 
There  is  a  professor  of  Greek  in  the  State  of  New 
York  —  may  his  days  be  long  in  the  land! — who 
inspired  his  pupils,  and  made  them  all  wish  they 
had  been  born  in  Athens,  and  almost  persuaded  them 
to  believe  that  the  dialect  of  the  Blest  is  some  sweet 


THE   MEN   OF   GROOVES.  63 

and  unwritten  Ionic.  His  word  to  his  classes  was, 
"  Come,  let  us  be  Greeks  together."  Though  his 
children  are  daughters,  he  has  been  the  father  of 
many  Hellenists.  The  shadows  of  years  have  not 
dimmed  my  recollection  of  those  recitation  hours  he 
made  the  pleasantest  of  the  twenty-four.  The  Doc 
tor's  enthusiasm  kindled  the  dead  Greek  into  a  liv 
ing  tongue,  and  the  Attic  Bee  could  have  found 
honey  upon  his  lips.  But  more  than  this,  his  enthu 
siasm  kindled  in  hosts  of  hearts  a  flame  of  admiring 
and  grateful  memories  that  will  never  die  out. 

ROBERT    KENNICOTT. 

And  how  could  I  write  anything  about  enthusi 
asm  without  naming  young  Robert  Kennicott,  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institute,  the  friend  and  companion  of 
Agassiz ;  the  boy  naturalist,  born  to  observe  Nature 
and  to  interpret  her  to  his  superiors  in  age  and  in 
knowledge  of  mere  books,  but  who  was  fated  to  die 
away  there  in  British  America,  whither  he  had  gone 
to  open  a  new  page  for  the  perusal  of  mankind.  Be 
fore  his  lip  had  the  down  of  a  peach,  he  found 
"books  in  the  running  brooks,  sermons  in  stones, 
and  good  in  everything."  Living  at  "The  Grove," 
a  few  miles  from  Chicago,  he  often  visited  the  city 
with  little  discoveries  he  had  made  and  specimens  he 
had  collected,  and  almost  always  called  at  the  office 
of  the  writer.  There  would  be  a  knock,  the  door 
would  open,  and  he  would  begin  to  talk  before  he 
closed  it,  and  talk  his  way  up  to  the  table,  and  talk 


64  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

himself  out-of-doors.  It  was  a  flower,  a  bug,  a  bird, 
a  quadruped.  He  was  full  of  plans  to  help  others  to 
see  as  he  did.  He  bristled  with  facts.  His  mind 
was  luxuriant.  He  had  a  love  for  natural  science 
"passing  the  love  of  women."  He  read  in  concen 
tric  circles  from  his  boyhood  home  farther  and  farther 
until  he  read  the  State  of  Illinois.  He  explored  its 
Delta,  that  queer  region  with  tropic  traces,  that  is 
bounded  by  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio.  He  brought 
out  its  plants,  caught  its  butterflies,  unearthed  its  rep 
tiles.  'No  hardship  was  too  severe  if  only  he  could 
add  some  coveted  specimen  to  his  cabinet.  Slight 
in  frame,  he  would  be  brave  as  a  lion  if  anything 
for  his  darling  science  could  be  gained  by  it.  What 
a  companion  he  would  have  been  for  Audubon  !  How 
like  an  infusion  of  fresh  young  blood  he  was  to  the 
sober  old  professors  with  whom  he  came  in  contact? 
The  last  time  I  met  him  was  in  the  halls  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institute  at  Washington,  where  he  had 
been  preserving  and  arranging  some  of  his  captures. 
As  he  conducted  me  through,  and  pointed  out  this 
and  that,  with  apt,  swift  words  of  explanation,  how 
happy  he  was !  By  and  by  we  stood  amid  a  splen 
did  collection  of  rodents, —  rats,  squirrels,  marmots, 
beavers,  and  all  the  four-footed  tribes  of  gnawers. 
And  then,  seizing  one  and  another  he  would  say, 
"  This  fellow,  you  see,  digs  for  a  living,  and  here  is 
how  you  know.  And  this  one  couldn't  jump  from 
tree  to  tree,  like  little  Eed  Jacket  there,  and  you  see 
why, —  lie  lacks  a  rudder  to  steer  by.  And  this,  you 


THE   MEN   OF   GROOVES.  65 

see  what  kind  of  food  he  must  eat,  because  here  are 
the  tools  he  did  it  with.  That  foot, —  look  at  it, — 
made  to  run  both  ways,  up  and  down  a  tree  at  will. 
And  here  is  a  shady  fellow,  loves  twilight, —  see  his 
eyes;  and  here  one  that  is  happiest  in  the  sunshine, 
and  loves  warmth,  and  likes  folks  if  he  can  keep  them 
at  arms-length."  And  so  he  ran  on  with  the  texts  in 
his  hand,  and,  though  wholly  unpremeditated,  just 
what  he  said  would  have  made  a  delightful  lecture. 
His  mind  was  brimful  all  the  while. 

Poor    Robert !     Science    lost    a    rarely-gifted    son, 
whose  simplicity  of  character,  gentleness  of  spirit  and 
enthusiasm   of    soul    made    him   beloved   in    life   and 
mourned  in  death. 
8* 


OHAPTEK  VIII. 

THE  NORTH  WOODS. 

r  M  HERE  is  a  range  of  hills  in  the  county  of  Lewis, 
-L-  seven  miles  to  the  summit,  called  "  Tug,"  and  if 
ever  anything  was  well  named,  it  is  that  same  range. 
Had  the  duty  of  christening  it  been  given  to  Adam 
he  could  not  have  done  better.  It  is  a  short  word 
with  a  sharp  pull  to  it.  It  straightens  the  traces  to 
twanging  point.  It  is  as  expressive  as  anything  in 
the  language, — Tug !  This  morning  I  am  on  the 
lowest  step  of  this  mighty  flight  of  stairs,  about  two 
tall  church  spires  above  the  lovely  village  of  Lowville, 
that  Goldsmith  would  have  embalmed  in  rhyme  had 
he  ever  fluted  his  way  into  the  Valley  of  the  Black 
River.  Stand  here  by  my  side,  and  you  shall  see  a 
panorama.  Before  you  is  a  splendid  table  of  green 
and  gold, —  of  pasture  and  meadow  and  grain.  It  is 
the  table  of  abundance.  Beyond  it,  the  land  drops 
away  into  the  lap  of  the  valley  that  holds  Lowville 
in  its  apron.  Along  the  eastern  edge  of  the  valley, 
like  a  piece  of  silk  braid  upon  a  seam,  is  Black  River, 
and  beyond, —  ah,  beyond,  is  the  great  wilderness  in 
the  heart  of  New  York,  stretching  away  to  the  lake 
that  Commodore  McDonough  immortalized  with  the 

66 


THE    NORTH    WOODS.  67 

thunder  of  his  triumphant  guns.  The  rising  sun 
touches  the  woods  and  tints  the  smokes,  and  the  for 
ests,  that  were  drawn  up  in  black  and  solid  columns 
all  night  long,  stand  apart,  and  open  their  ranks  a  little 
to  the  bright  lances  of  the  sun.  You  see  little  square 
clearings  set  deep  in  the  woods  here  and  there,  like 
panel-work,  and  cigar-boxes,  painted  white,  scattered 
about  in  the  openings.  Before  you  are  the  great 
North  Woods,  where  the  panther's  cry  and  the  foot 
of  the  prowling  bear  are  familiar  as  plantain  in  a 
farmer's  door-yard ;  where  the  rattle  of  the  moose's 
hoofs  used  to  crackle  like  burning  hemlock  as  the 
mouse-colored  monsters  crashed  through  the  wilder 
ness;  where  wolves,  gaunt  and  gray,  made  night  hide 
ous.  As  it  was  forty  years  ago  so  it  is  to-day  through 
a  rugged  region  of  an  hundred  miles.  Colton's  Map 
of  the  New  York  Wilderness  lies  open  upon  my  knee. 
I  lift  my  eyes  from  the  paper,  and  lo,  a  thirty-mile 
sweep  of  the  original,  draped  in  the  mountain  blue,  is 
full  before  me.  Let  us  climb  the  hill  another  stair. 
We  turn,  and  the  picture  unrolls  like  a  scroll. 

There  are  figures  on  the  slant  hillsides.  You  mis 
trust  mowers,  but  you  hear  nothing.  It  is  the  world 
in  slippers  of  list.  It  is  a  picture  of  profound  peace, 
and  unbroken  silence,  and  power  everlasting.  You 
fancy  Rob  Roy  could  have  stood  here  when  he  said, 
"Were  I  to  lose  sight  of  my  native  hills,  my  heart 
would  sink  and  my  arm  would  wither  like  a  fern  i' 
the  winter  blast."  A  few  rods  down  the  steep  side, 
as  if  it  had  halted  for  breath  on  the  Gothic  roof,  and 


68  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

would  make  a  new  bound  and  over  the  eaves  in  a 
minute,  is  a  trace  of  crashing  roar  and  grinding 
strength  ages  ago.  It  is  a  bowlder  as  big  as  a  house. 
It  has  had  battles  with  icebergs.  Arctic  bears  may 
have  clambered  up  on  it,  and  shaken  their  white  jack 
ets  in  the  feeble  sun  of  the  North.  The  bears  and  the 
bergs  have  vanished,  but  the  rock  remains  like  a  great 
altar  of  sacrifice.  Beneath  the  rock  are  two  burrows. 
Reynard  the  fox  dwells  in  the  basement,  and  feasts 
like  a  traveling  elder  upon  the  chickens  of  the  land. 
It  is  the  Valley  of  Rasselas.  Life  is  an  unruffled  flow. 
People  live  on  into  the  fourscore  and  ten.  You  see 
a  veteran  laying  stone  wall  under  the  blazing  sun, 
and  he  is  seventy-seven.  Yonder  in  the  meadow  is  a 
man  "  raking  after/'  and  he  is  eighty.  You  get  your 
first  glimpse  of  a  hay-tedder.  It  is  a  quadruped. 
Each  foot  has  a  pair  of  long,  crooked  claws.  Its  office 
is  to  shake  up  the  mown  grass,  and  kick  it  all  over 
the  lot.  It  is  as  vicious  as  a  mule,  and  the  champion 
kicker  of  Christendom.  It  provokes  a  smile  every 
time  it  goes  into  a  spasm.  You  see  a  hop-yard  and 
a  bean-field.  Life  in  the  valley  is  like  the  hop  and 
the  vine  of  "  Jack  the  Giant-Killer."  It  runs  noise 
lessly,  and  it  always  runs  one  way, —  left  to  right  is 
the  hop's  route.  Right  to  left  is  the  bean's, —  isn't 
it  ?  And  if  it  is,  why? 

Sing  of  the  pines  and  the  palms  and  the  cedars  of 
Lebanon,  but  grass  is  the  very  grandest  clothing  of  the 
globe.  Without  it  animal  life  would  dwindle  to  aa 
feeble  folk,"  and  the  earth  would  be  a  desert.  It 


THE   KORTH   WOODS.  60 

might  have  been  worse  for  the  ancient  king,  after  all, 
than  to  be  turned  out  to  grass.  The  hill  counties 
never  have  so  rich  a  look  as  in  haying  time.  Such 
velvets  as  the  shorn  fields  show  you, —  golden  green 
with  the  touches  of  the  sun, —  are  never  seen  any 
where  else  out  of  kings'  palaces. 

Among  the  most  exquisite  features  of  the  hill  coun 
try  are  the  elms,  with  their  Corinthian  crowns  of  green 
sculpture.  They  are  sprinkled  everywhere;  —  now 
drawn  against  the  sky  and  clear  of  the  world,  from 
the  top  ridge  of  a  hill,  and  now  planted  all  about  in 
the  valley  pastures  like  the  columns  of  temples  begun. 
Oaks  are  rugged,  maples  hide  whole  summers  in  their 
leafy  recesses,  but  for  airy  grace  and  enduring  beauty 
the  elm  excels  them  all.  It  is  the  lady-like  tree  of  the 
woods. 

SEVEN    LAKES. 

There  are  seven  pieces  of  fog  just  tangled  in  the 
top  of  the  forest.  Unlike  the  article  coveted  by  Jason, 
the  wool  dealer  of  old  times,  they  are  silver  instead 
of  golden.  The  writer  stood  in  his  boyhood  about 
where  we  stand  to-day,  and  with  him  one  who  guided 
his  uncertain  steps.  Those  seven  fleeces  were  there 
then  !  That  faithful  friend  and  guide  bade  the  child 
count  them,  and  then  he  said,  "  Those  little  clouds 
are  a  sort  of  picture  in  the  air.  Beneath  each  one  in 
the  depth  of  the  woods  is  a  lake.  You  cannot  see  it, 
but  it  is  there,  and  it  will  be  there, —  its  silver  picture 
yet  hung  above  it, — when  you  and  I  are  gone."  With 
that  we  came  silently  down  the  stairs,  and  the  boy 


70  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

longed  to  be  twenty-one,  that  he  might  do  the  first 
man's  business  of  his  life, —  penetrate  that  wilderness 
and  look  upon  the  mysterious  originals  of  those  aerial 
phantoms.  One  of  the  twain  long  ago  went  away  to 
be  at  rest,  which  is  far  better,  and  the  other  is  here  to 
day.  There  is  not  a  stain  upon  those  untarnished  pict 
ures.  Like  the  Clouds  of  Magellan,  they  are  everlasting. 
Though  the  writer  has  never  yet  seen  the  calm  and 
shaded  waters,  he  knows  that  they  are  there.  He  be 
lieves  those  lips  that  never  told  him  wrong,  and  behold 
here  the  seven  witnesses  to  bear  testimony  every  sunny, 
summer  morning !  The  lesson  of  the  wilderness  is 
worth  bearing  away  into  the  thronged  world, —  the 
lesson  of  faith  in  the  things  unseen  and  eternal ! 

VILLAGE    ROOSTERS. 

You  pass  little  villages  in  the  valleys.  There  is 
a  period  in  the  life  of  small  villages,  as  of  small 
girls,  called  the  "hateful  age,"  when  kitchen  smokes 
are  distinguishable  and  instructive;  —  that  woman  had 
fish  for  breakfast,  and  this  one  flesh;  —  where  every 
body  dwells  in  a  glass-house,  and  is  about  as  con 
spicuous  as  if  he  lived  in  a  lighted  lantern.  If  you 
want  to  be  inventoried,  walk  the  streets  of  such  a 
village,  and  the  pagans  will  "take"  you  like  a  photo 
grapher.  You'll  be  a  stereoscopic  object  in  spite  of 
yourself.  Doors  will  be  ajar  with  noses  in  them,  and 
the  sharpest  eye  they  have.  Faces  will  be  framed 
and  glazed  in  the  window-panes.  You  will  be  fairly 
surrounded  by  observant  pagans.  It  has  occurred  to 


THE    NOliTH    WOODS.  71 

you  how  many  more  people  there  are  in  a  little 
hamlet  that  resemble  a  disabled  milking-stool,  "with 
out  any  visible  means  of  support,"  than  there  are 
in  larger  towns.  See  the  front  steps  of  that  village 
store,  this  minute.  One,  three,  five,  eight, —  there 
are  nine  persons,  like  the  ancient  blackbirds,  "all  in 
a  row."  They  have  gone  to  roost,  but  they  are  as 
observant  as  magpies.  A  lady  is  coming  down  the 
street.  Those  nine  heads,  carrying  eighteen  eyes, 
turn  to  the  right  and  watch  her.  As  she  nears  them 
those  heads  swing  slowly  around.  As  she  passes  they 
are  all  front-face.  They  see  her  from  top-knot  to- 
gaiter-button.  Then  slowly  to  the  left  those  eyes 
revolve.  They  follow  at  her  heels  like  spaniels. 
They  run  up  her  dress  to  the  nape  of  her  neck  like 
mice. 

When  Robert  Raikes  with  his  Sabbath  schools  be 
gan  upon  the  London  gamins,  he  commenced  with 
sermons,  but  he  couldn't  get  at  them.  He  must  un 
earth  them  first.  So  he  revised  his  practice  and  tried 
soap  and  water,  got  down  to  the  boys  and  succeeded. 
Every  such  village  should  introduce  hydropathy  for 
the  health  of  store-door  and  tavern-step  roosters.  It 
should  buy  a  hand  fire-engine,  not  for  the  purpose 
of  putting  out  fires,  but  extinguishing  loafers.  I 
should  like  to  help  man  the  brakes  in  some  of  those 
villages  where  they  keep  the  featherless  poultry  on 
the  door-steps ! 


72  SUMMER-SAVORY. 


Many  of  the  villages  in  the  hill  counties  are 
blessed  —  or  otherwise  —  with  the  kind  of  man  called 
"a  retired  fanner."  I  am  quite  aware  that  I  am 
treating  of  "the  bone  and  sinew"  of  the  land; 
that  politicians,  in  their  rural  raids  on  the  eve  of 
elections,  carry  the  idea  that  because  a  man  has  per 
manently  crooked  his  back  at  the  plow  he  must 
therefore  be  morally  straight  as  a  ramrod  ;  that  a  soft 
white  hand  and  a  smutty  heart  are  one  pair,  and  a 
horny,  sun-browned  palm  and  great  cleanliness  in  the 
left  breast  are  another.  Concede  it  all,  and  yet  what 
business  has  a  stout,  hearty  farmer  to  "retire,"  and 
sell  his  home  where  his  children  were  born  and  his 
fields  made  abundant  answer,  and  go  to  the  nearest 
village,  and  get  his  milk  from  a  tin  cow,  and  buy  a 
rickety  piano  for  his  girl,  and  sit  on  dry-goods  boxes 
and  whittle  sticks?  That  a  man  who  has  lived  in  a 
stone  pen  half  his  days,  and  had  a  brick  earth  under 
his  feet,  and  a  strip  of  sky  a  hundred^  feet  wide  and 
half  a  mile  long  over  his  head,  should  sigh  to  shut 
day-book  and  le'dger,  and  go  away  into  the  clean 
country,  arid  have  a  round  horizon  to  himself,  and  a 
sky  not  cut  in  slices  like  a  card  of  General  Training 
gingerbread,  is  no  mystery.  But  the  hegira  in  the 
opposite  direction  is  incomprehensible.  The  Farmer 
depreciates  when  he  "retires."  He  is  worth  less  to 
the  world  than  he  was  before.  The  day  he  trans 
plants  himself  he  has  done  growing  and  doing.  To 


THE    NORTH   WOODS.  73 

be  sure,  he  underbids  the  village  day-laborer  some 
times,  and  so  takes  the  money  out  of  the  father's 
hands  and  the  bread  out  of  the  children's  mouths ; 
but  unless  this  be  a  contribution  to  the  community, 
he  is  not  distinguished  as  a  benefactor.  In  fact, 
"retiring"  is  not  quite  safe  for  anybody  who  desires 
length  of  days.  About  the  driest  sticks  imaginable 
are  statis-tic,^  but  they  tell  a  grave  truth  when  they 
show  that  where  a  man  voluntarily  withdraws  from 
his  life-work  he  is  about  done  living.  As  a  rule, 
"he  died  in  the  harness"  is  a  pretty  good  epitaph 
for  man  or  horse. 

AN    OLD    HOMESTEAD. 

American  homes  are,  generally,  about  as  ephemeral 
as  a  morning-glory,  and  furnish  quite  as  eloquent  a 
sermon  as  can  be  preached,  upon  the  evanescence  of 
earthly  things. 

A  home  where  a  grandmother  smiles  down  the 
generations  like  a  small,  benignant  providence ;  where 
rooms  here  and  there  all  over  the  house  are  hallowed 
by  births  and  deaths  and  weddings  and  contented 
toil ;  where  bits  of  old  furniture  keep  you  from  for 
getting  you  were  ever  a  child,  and  whither  you  escape 
as  to  an  altar  of  refuge  from  the  heat,  hurry  and 
heartlessness  of  the  big  world,  and  grow  better  and 
younger  for  it  all, —  such  a  home  is  an  ordained 
preacher ;  but,  alas,  how  often,  in  this  land  of  change, 
is  it  "  silenced,"  and  ignobly  banished  from  the 
ministry  ! 


74  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

Jnst  the  place  for  old  relics  and  heirlooms  is  this 
hospitable  homestead  where  I  write.  "  The  olive- 
branches"  are  all  scattered  and  gone  but  one,  and  she 
brightens  up  the  house  for  the  tall  father  and  the 
faithful  mother  "and  the  stranger  within  the  gates." 
Just  the  place  for  hair-trunks,  red,  brindled  and  white, 
and  worn  in  spots  as  if  they  had  been  chafed  by  a 
harness;  trunks  trimmed  with  brass  nails,  and  lettered 
upon  the  cover  with  the  same  "O.S.,"  which  may  well 
mean  old  style,  for  lack  of  a  better  rendering.  A  little 
hand-trunk,  about  the  size  of  a  large  wood  chuck,  is 
brought  out,  girt  with  a  little  leather  strap.  It  is 
older  than  reader  and  writer  together.  It  is  fat  with 
papers  going  back  into  the  babyhood  of  the  century. 
Here  is  the  colonel's  commission,  signed  by  a  dead 
governor,  attested  by  a  dead  secretary ;  and  here 
another,  showing  his  right  to  be  called  captain ;  and 
there,  close  by  war,  is  love!  Here  is  a  woman's  writ 
ing,  neat  and  regular,  wherein  she  berates  him  in 
quaint  verse  for  his  attentions  to  another  girl.  Girl? 
Bride,  mother,  dead,  dust,  near  half  a  century  ago! 
And  here  is  the  rhyming  answer,  on  yellow  paper 
withered  as  an  autumn  leaf.  But  they  kissed  and 
were  friends.  Just  the  place  for  old  daybooks  and 
ledgers.  Here  are  fifty  pounds  of  them,  written  in  a 
hand  as  plain  as  a  guide-board.  Pages  covered  with 
the  names  of  dead  men  and  dead  women  that  were 
transferred,  many  a  year  ago,  to  gray  slabs  and  marble 
monuments  among  these  mountains,  and  away  to  the 
West  where  the  red  skies  promise  a  glorious  morrow ; 


THE    NORTH    WOODS.  75 

accounts  for  ribbons  and  calico  of  patterns  as  dead  as 
the  Pharaohs.  We  turn  the  big  books  back  beyond 
the  $  Cts.  Mills,  of  Federal  money,  and  here  we  are 
among  the  <£  S.  D.  of  the  old  world ! 

The  sight  of  these  relics  quickens  the  memory, 
and  stories  are  passed  about,  the  latest  of  which  is 
no  chicken,  not  one  of  them  being  less  than  twenty- 
five  years  old.  The  faithful  wife  and  mother,  younger 
at  sixty-nine  than  the  Dolly  Yardens  of  a  single  score, 
brings  out  the  cards  with  which  she  won  many  a  game 
aforetime.  A  pair  of  aces  with  handles  to  them  is  that 
"lone  hand"  of  hers  —  a  brace  as  mysterious  to  mod 
ern  eyes  as  anything  unearthed  at  Pompeii,  for  they 
are  the  old-time  tools  for  carding  wool.  And  so  the 
talk  and  the  show  run  on,  giving  glimpses  that  grow 
rarer  every  year  of  the  sturdier  times,  when  the 
Adams  "  delved  "  and  the  Eves  "  span  "  ;  when  men 
fought  wolf  and  wilderness,  and  women  marched 
abreast  with  men. 

Almost  every  old  house  among  the  mountains  is 
haunted  by  gray-headed  stories,  as  jolly  as  so  many 
sparkling  Octobers.  You  can  hardly  stand  by  the 
grave  of  a  pioneer  where  a  laughing  anecdote  does  not 
mar  the  solemnity  of  the  weedy  and  silent  place. 
•  But  our  rambles  in  the  woods  are  ended  for  the 
year.  As  an  Irishman  might  be  charged  with  saying, 
wood  is  one  of  the  most  precious  of  metals.  "  From 
the  Ark  on  Ararat  to  the  Cross  on  Calvary,"  wood 
has  been  instrumental  in  the  salvation  of  two  worlds. 
Did  you  see  the  precious  woods  in  the  Brazilian  de- 


76  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

partment  at  the  Centennial  ?  The  clouded  marbles 
right  from  the  tree ;  the  rose-tinted,  amber-colored 
surfaces,  just  as  they  grew,  ranging  almost  from  ebony 
to  alabaster,  and  richer  than  any  work  of  art? 

But  to  me  there  is  no  more  beautiful  wood  than 
the  hard  maple,  the  rock  maple,  the  sugar  maple,  that 
sweetens  thought  with  memories  of  the  bubbling 
kettles  in  the  faint-blue,  smoky  woods,  with  the  soft 
April  moon  over  the  right  shoulder,  and  the  promise 
of  resurrection  showing  here  and  there  in  the  leafy 
loam  at  the  edge  of  the  snow-drifts;  and  the  little 
camp  with  its  roof  of  mighty  barks  and  its  couch  of 
hemlock  boughs;  and  the  early  eggs  tumbling  about 
like  dolphins  in  a  baby  kettle  of  sap ;  and  the  girls 
chattering  by  the  fire,  seated  upon  a  divan  of  straw ; 
and  the  men  looking  like  quaint  pictures  of  "Libra 
the  Scales."  But  the  maples  are  down,  and  so  are 
the  patient  wearers  of  the  wooden  yokes,  and  so  are 
the  girls,  and  a  trampled  street  runs  over  the  site  of 
the  camp-lire,  and  corn  waves  and  gardens  smile 
where  squirrels  and  vines  ran  up  and  down  the 
rugged  maples  at  their  own  sweet  will.  If  memories 
are  deathless,  as  some  men  think,  then  there  will  be 
stray  recollections  of  the  sugar-bush  where  they  sing 
the  New  Song. 

But  beyond  the  flavor  of  the  maples  is  the  sight 
of  them ;  now,  when  they  roll  up  their  clouds  of 
green  in  the  summer,  and  now,  when  winter  has 
blown  away  the  leafy  tempest,  and  the  trees  are  logs, 
and  the  logs  are  cleft,  and  built  up  in  the  old  lire- 


THE   NORTH    WOODS.  77 

place,  and  the  splendor  of  fire  takes  possession  of  the 
log  hut  n't  for  rabbits  to  hide  in,  and  the  rudeness 
becomes  radiance,  and  the  homely  heap  a  palace. 

I  have  a  looking-glass  that  has  had  in  it  a  whole 
generation  of  shadows,  and  the  frame  of  it  I  saw  in 
the  living  tree,  and  it  was  as  full  of  birds'-eyes  as  a 
pigeon-roost  in  full  feather;  and  there  is  a  maple 
ruler  somewhere  that  a  leaden  plummet  followed 
when  I  drew  lines  to  write  "  compositions  "  by,  about 
"  Spring,"  and  "  Health,"  and  such  things :  an  imple 
ment  that  was  applied  sometimes  to  my  open  palm 
in  a  warming,  if  not  a  welcome,  fashion;  and  that 
ruler  is  as  full  of  curls  as  the  head  of  a  golden-haired 
Saxon,  and  about  the  color  of  it.  Ah,  South  America 
is  gorgeous,  but  North  America  is  glorious ! 


-  H, 


OHAPTEE  IX. 

FUNERAL   EXTRAVAGANCE. 

THE    OLD    GARDEN. 

IT  was  a  long  time  ago,  but  the  picture  is  plain  as 
yesterday.  A  little  village  like  a  bird's  nest  among 
the  leaves.  A  house,  low-browed  and  double-chim 
neyed,  where  lilacs  blossomed  by  the  door-stone,  and 
roses  looked  in  at  the  green  window-panes.  On  one 
side,  an  orchard  with  robins  and  seek-no-furthers  — 
they  used  to  call  them  signifyders?  On  the  other, 
a  garden  with  a  broad  walk  down  the  middle,  bordered 
with  pinks  and  garden  sorrel,  four-o' clocks  and  nas 
turtiums.  There  were  columns  of  carrots  and  battal 
ions  of  beets  and  companies  of  parsnips  and  regiments 
of  onions,  and  a  row  of  cabbages,  a  squad  of  green 
recruits,  all  stupidly  standing,  wrapped  in  their  volu 
minous  ears,  awaiting  orders.  There  was  a  sort  of 
general's  staff  of  sweet-corn  in  a  corner,  all  with  drawn 
swords  and  tassels  of  silk;  and  a  plumed  troop  of 
asparagus  in  the  rear  ;  and  a  picket  line  of  damson- 
plums  and  currant  bushes  along  the  fence.  There 
were  sage  and  summer-savory  in  their  little  beds,  while 
an  Indian  tribe  of  painted  poppies  drowsily  camped 
among  the  families  of  dill,  caraway  and  coriander,  for 


FUNERAL   EXTRAVAGANCE.  79 

Sitting  Bull  was  not  yet.  Watermelons  green  as 
an  earth  with  perpetual  summer,  and  musk  melon  a 
marked  like  an  artificial  globe  with  meridian  lines, 
and  conical-shot  of  cucumbers  that  were  trying  their 
best  to  be  cactuses  and  soured  into  pickles  at  failing, 
composed  the  garden  artillery,  while  peas  in  white 
favors  that  carried  plump  knapsacks  of  green,  and 
their  cousins  the  beans,  those  pets  of  the  Fabii,  that 
climbed  the  poles  with  the  agility  of  Darwin's  own 
private  grandfather,  made  up  the  commissary  corps  of 
the  garden.  The  balmy  shadow  of  a  great  Gilead  fell 
upon  the  path  by  the  gate  and  sweetened  all  the  air. 

THE    BOY'S    FUNERAL. 

In  the  little  door-yard  were  two  Lombardy  poplars, 
married  by  a  grape-vine  that  aproned  its  clusters  and 
swung  over  the  path  and  shed  sun  and  rain  like  a 
roof.  In  that  shadow  on  a  summer's  day  stood  a  tea- 
table,  with  a  coffin  of  cherry  upon  it,  and  just  as 
much  silver  about  it  as  a  chrysalis  has.  Upon  a  lit 
tle  pillow  within  lay  the  head  of  a  dead  boy  —  verily, 
a  pillow  of  perfect  rest  —  one  of  that  countless  mul 
titude  of  whom  the  Savior  had  said,  "  Suffer  little  chil 
dren  to  come  unto  me,  and  forbid  them  not."  I  am 
afraid  the  mother  disobeyed  and  forbade,  but  the  child 
heeded  the  invitation  arid  went. 

The  neighbors  stood  reverently  around,  the  minis 
ter  beside  the  coffin.  He  read  a  chapter;  said  a  few 
words  to  "  the  mourners,"  as  was  the  fashion  of  the 
day ;  he  told  us  all  to  be  even  as  little  children,  and 


80  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

invited  ns  all  in  the  name  of  the  Master.  And  then 
"  they  sang  a  hymn  and  went  out,"  as  the  disciples 
did  from  the  supper  —  out  into  the  yellow  road,  and 
away  to  the  grave-yard.  There  was  no  plumed  hearse, 
that  carriage  for  one,  and  glossy  as  anthracite  out  of 
the  mine,  but  only  "  bearers."  All  walked  but  the 
aged,  the  feeble  and  the  dead  boy.  The  grave-yard 
was  as  full  of  gray  slabs  as  a  quarry,  and  they  leaned 
this  way  and  that,  and  bore  dates  that  went  back  into 
the  seventeen  hundreds,  and  texts  of  scripture,  and 
quaint  little  couplets  that  limped  into  the  grass  and 
crept  under  the  moss  and  were  lost.  They  were  the 
very  "sermons  in  stones"  of  the  old  play.  Some  fam 
ily  graves  were  like  the  strings  of  David's  harp,— 
father,  mother,  children,  side  by  side.  But  summer 
was  doing  its  best  to  cover  everything  up  with  luxu 
riant  life. 

Beside  the  gate  stood  a  bier, —  a  lean,  black  frame 
with  four  handles.  It  stood  there  winter  and  sum 
mer,  always  waiting,  always  ready.  Some  seasons  the 
grass  grew  up  rank  and  tall  around  it,  as  if  to  hide 
the  thing  from  passers-by,  but  it  never  could  be  lost. 
Death  was  sure  to  find  it.  And  so  the  boy  was  buried 
out  of  sight.  All  was  done  decently  and  in  order. 
The  funeral  was  not  a  ceremonial,  but  a  simple,  neigh 
borly,  loving  service. 

SETTING    OFF    DEATH. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  in  these  crowded  times 
any  such  method  is  possible.  I  have  no  grudge  against 


FUNERAL    EXTRAVAGANCE.  81 

the  undertakers,  and  the  makers  of  caskets,  and  the 
drivers  of  mourning  coaches,  and  the  ostriches  that 
lend  their  feathers ;  but  I  do  mean  that  the  ostenta 
tious  and  the  rich  are  setting  a  deplorable  example 
to  the  world.  Nobody  of  ordinary  means  can  afford 
to  die,  or  at  least  to  be  buried,  at  present  prices.  It 
is  a  piece  of  extravagance  not  to  be  indulged  in-.  It 
is  something  strange  how  it  comes  to  cost  so  much 
to  get  into  the  world  before  you  have  begun  to  be  of 
any  use,  and  to  get  out  of  the  world  after  you  have 
ceased  to  be  of  any  use. 

I  mean  to  say  that  the  extravagance  of  the  age 
follows  us  to  the  grave ;  that  many  a  widow  has 
robbed  herself  of  daily  bread  to  give  her  poor  hus 
band  as  grand  a  funeral  as  her  neighbor's,  that  he  might 
ride  for  once  in  state  who  never  rode  at  all.  A  lit 
tle  late  for  him  to  enjoy  it,  the  demonstration  is  for 
people  who  never  cared  for  him  when  alive,  and  who 
shall  cry,  "A  splendid  funeral!"  as  the  procession 
creeps  by,  like  dots  of  shadow  in  the  sunshine ;  or,  if 
not  that,  then  because  she  takes  this  way  of  relieving 
her  heart  and  expressing  her  sorrow,  even  as  the  Indian 
widow  sometimes  voluntarily  sacrifices  herself  on  the 
funeral  pile  of  her  dead  husband.  And  neither  of  them 
is  a  reason.  I  know  of  a  funeral,  only  yesterday,  of  a 
poor  laboring  man  of  two  hundred  and  forty  dollars  a 
year,  whose  funeral  cost  eight  months'  wages.  It  was  as 
if  he  had  cut  off  the  total  income  of  his  wife  and  chil 
dren  in  an  instant,  and  taken  away  with  him  two-thirds 
of  a  year's  wages  besides.  It  certainly  would  have  been 


82  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

very  unkind  of  him,  if  he  could  have  avoided  it;  he 
would  not  have  died  if  he  could  have  had  his  own 
way.  But  the  unkindness  comes  in  somewhere  all 
the  same.  It  is  fathered  upon  the  public  sentiment, 
fostered  by  vanity  and  pride,  and  not  by  grief  and 
affection,  that  a  man  must  be  treated  better  after  he 
is  dead  than  he  ever  was  in  his  life. 

Our  Irish  fellow-citizens  make  a  pageant  of  a 
funeral,  if  not  a  festival.  They  yield  to  nobody  in 
their  demonstrations  of  respect  for  the  dead.  Their 
processions  are  drawn  out  like  an  Alexandrine  line, 
and  their  funerals  are  a  success.  "Who  is  dead?" 
asked  somebody,  as  twenty  or  thirty  carriages  filed 
along  the  street.  And  the  reply  was,  "It  is  either 
some  public  dignitary  or  an  Irishman.  I'll  inquire," 
and  it  proved  to  be  a  porter  in  a  down-town  store ! 
The  love  of  an  Irish  mother  for  her  children  is  a 
proverb,  and  I  must  respect  the  feeling  with  which 
she  robs  herself  of  the  necessaries  of  life  to  give  her 
darling  what  the  world  shall  pronounce  a  fitting 
burial. 

But,  say  the  objectors,  "  what  would  you  have  ? 
Shall  we  not  honor  our  dead  ?  May  we  not  do  as  we 
please  with  our  own?"  And  the  answer  is  just  this: 
let  the  funeral  obsequies  be  conducted  appropriately 
and  well,  but  shut  out  vulgar  extravagance  from  the 
severe  presence  of  death.  Let  not  the  lavish  expendi 
ture  of  the  rich  invest  dying  with  two  terrors  for  the 
poor:  first,  the  dread  of  death  itself;  and  second,  the 
dread  of  how  they  shall  defray  the  cost  of  the  funeral. 


FUNERAL    EXTRAVAGANCE.  83 

FLORAL    OFFERINGS. 

Flowers  are  beautiful  and  significant.  Placed  in 
the  hand  or  on  the  breast  of  the  dead,  strown  upon 
the  coffin  and  gracefully  disposed  about  it,  they  be 
come  sinless  preachers  in  whom  is  no  guile.  It  is 
pleasant  to  see  a  young  girl  lying  amid  the  flowers 
she  loved, —  the  flowers  that  are  so  like  her.  It  is 
suggestive  to  see  the  strong  man  shorn  of  his  strength 
holding  a  little  flower  in  his  dead  fingers.  How  strik 
ingly  the  likeness  of  the  earthly  fate  of  the  two  comes 
out  when  we  see  them  together !  But  even  this  is 
carried  to  an  excess  that  calls  for  censure.  Costly  ex 
otics  are  fairly  stormed  down  upon  the  dead  in  op 
pressive  profusion.  It  is  a  wholesale  slaughter  of  the 
innocents  because  one  man  has  died.  I  have  no  sat 
isfactory  statistics  at  command,  and  if  I  had  they 
would  be  more  unsatisfactory  still,  but  it  is  safe  to 
assume  that  money  enough  is  annually  expended  in 
this  country  in  the  purchase  of  flowers  for  excessive 
funeral  decoration,  and  for  princely  casket  and  cor 
tege,  to  support  fifty  thousand  orphans  for  a  round 
year,  and  to  fill  the  failing  cruise  of  fifty  thousand 
widows.  And  so  there  is  some  show  of  justice  in 
saying  that  this  prodigality  produces  the  suffering  it 
does  not  relieve. 

Somehow  the  purchase  of  floral  offerings  for  our 
own  dead  always  seemed  to  me  a  little  like  the  paid 
mourners  and  weepers  of  earlier  English  times.  But 
when  these  gifts  come  spontaneously  from  friends,  just 


84  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

as  they  sprang  from  the  earth,  all  thought  of  commer 
cial  values  is  happily  banished  from  the  mind.  One 
December  day,  Lizzie,  one  of  the  loveliest  girls  in  all 
the  world,  died  at  Hamilton,  New  York.  She  was  the 
light  of  the  household,  and  a  challenging  angel  that 
summoned  out  all  the  better  qualities  in  everybody 
around  her.  I  do  not  know  why  she  died.  Does  any 
one  ?  It  was  gray  winter  weather,  and  the  floral  glory 
of  open-air  gardens  was  gone.  But  flowers  came  from 
here  and  there  throughout  the  village.  One  plucked 
the  solitary  calla-lily  she  was  cherishing  for  a  Christ 
mas  festival.  Another  severed  the  rosebuds  that  should 
never  blossom.  The  windows  even  of  humble  homes 
were  bereft  of  their  fragrant  occupants,  and  so  they 
came  in  hands  and  baskets  —  and  may  I  not  say,  in 
hearts,  withal?  —  through  the  chill  air,  and  made  all 
beautiful  and  summer-like  around  the  dear  little  girl 
as  she  slept.  Ah,  there  was  no  ostentation  here,  but 
a  tribute  as  simple  and  unaffected  as  the  flowers  them 
selves.  It  reminded  me  of  that  other  funeral  with 
which  I  began  this  article  —  the  out-door  obsequies 
of  her  far-away  uncle,  "  the  little  boy  that  died." 

The  beautifying  of  the  last  sleeping-places  of  man 
kind  is  a  noble  and  an  ennobling  work.  I  would  not 
have  it  diminished  if  I  could.  The  loveliness  is  for 
all,  and  when  poor  men  and  women  "  take  their  places 
in  the  silent  halls,,"  they  share  and  share  alike,  as  do 
the  heirs  in  an  equitable  will.  Perhaps  the  shadow 
of  some  great  man's  monument  may  fall  upon  their 
graves,  for  at  last  they  are  admitted  into  what  the 


FUNERAL   EXTRAVAGANCE.  85 

world  calls  good  society.  Only  this:  If  dying,  a  man 
cannot  relieve  the  distresses  of  the  poor  immediately 
around  him,  and  have  at  the  same  time  the  costliest 
of  monuments,  let  his  executors  direct  that  the  pro 
posed  shaft  be  shortened  a  few  feet  below  the  original 
design,  and  a  sculptured  angel  or  two  be  left  out,  and 
the  sum  they  would  have  cost  be  given  to  the  poor. 
So  shall  they  be  angels  indeed. 

A  girl  on  the  threshold  of  womanhood  died, 
lovely,  loving  and  beloved.  Her  life  was  like  sun 
shine  in  shady  places.  Her  resting-place  is  marked 
by  a  plain  marble,  recording  her  name  and  the  dates 
of  birth  and  death.  You  must  look  elsewhere  for  her 
monument,  and  you  will  find  -it.  Her  father  built  a 
church-edifice  free  to  the  poor,  and  a  school-room  be 
side  it,  and  he  named  them  both  for  her.  And  finding 
it,  you  can  take  up  the  inscription  for  Sir  Christopher 
Wren  :  "  If  you  would  see  my  monument,  look  around  !" 

Let  men  set  forth  their  tables  with  a '  service  of 
silver  if  they  can,  and  garnish  their  halls  with  pictures 
and  statues,  and  all  things  of  beauty  that  are  joys 
forever.  So  far  they  need  not  consult  the  comparative 
poverty  of  the  majority,  or' pay  it  homage;  but  in  this 
matter  of  dying,  all  men  and  women  are  precisely 
equal  before  God  and  the  world.  The  burial  is  a  com 
mon  necessity,  and  for  this  reason,  if  for  no  other, 
these  barbaric  funeral  extravagances  of  wealth  should 
be  held  "  more  honored  in  the  breach  than  the  observ 
ance,"  for  the  sake  of  those  who  are  weaker  and 
poorer  than  they. 


CHAPTER  X. 

"MINE  INN." 

is  a  quaint,  old-world  flavor  about  that 
-JL  Anglo-Saxon  word  inne  —  inn.  Direct,  simple 
as  mother-tongue  can  make  it,  the  word  tells  all  that 
is  worth  telling.  Painted  in  black  letters  across  a 
sign,  oval  and  white  as  an  egg  —  an  anomalous  egg, 
with  little  ringlets  of  sheet  iron  around  the  curve  — 
and  the  sign  set  upon  a  post  that  leans  a  little,  as 
if  to  give  the  word  Italic  emphasis,  it  is  at  once  an 
announcement  and  a  card  of  invitation:  "  INN."  The 
unhappy  William  Shenstone,  who  said  he  found  his 
"  warmest  welcome  in  an  inn,"  would  have  understood 
it,  warmed  to  it,  and  accepted  it. 

"  Tavern "  is  the  next  homeliest  word,  with  a 
democratic  touch  to  it  that  gives  it  little  favor.  Ap 
ply  it  and  see:  Astor's  tavern,  St.  Nicholas  tavern! 
And  yet,  why  not?  "The  old  London  Tavern"  had 
more  wit  and  genius  within  its  walls  in  some  dead 
day  or  two  than  was  ever  congregated  at  the  St. 
Nicholas  or  the  Astor  in  a  round  year.  The  word 
brings  up  the  picture  of  the  bare  broad  table  printed 
off  in  circles  with  flagons;  of  a  mighty  cheese,  over 
come  and  sagging  with  its  own  richness ;  of  the  pipes 


MINE    INK."  87 


of  clay  rolling  up  the  smoke  of  their  narcotic  offer 
ings  ;  of  breezy-voiced  Englishmen  and  "  God  save  the 
King." 

"Caravansary"  —  a  tavern  for  caravans  —  brings  up 
a  far-away  Oriental  scene,  with  a  four-footed  train 
just  filing  in  from  the  sands.  The  very  word  sug 
gests  turbans  and  spices  and  silver-tailed  horses,  and 
a  gloomy  court  that  looms  up  with  camels. 

"Hotel"  is  as  French  as  a  frog.  It  is  second 
cousin  to  palaces.  It  is  applied  to  everything  in 
America  that  "  takes  in  "  strangers.  It  means  any 
thing  by  the  roadside  that  promises  "entertainment 
for  man  and  beast." 

"  House  "  is  also  an  aristocratic,  almost  a  royal, 
appellation.  The  House  of  Hanover,  which  glitters 
with  coronets  and  crowns  and  magnificent  possibili 
ties,  may  designate  a  hemlock  tavern  in  the  West, 
where  a  tempestuous  runner  shouts  "All  aboard  for 
the  Hanover  House!"  Landlords  are  often  "left"  to 
give  their  own  names  to  hotels,  and  sometimes  they 
are  singularly  absurd.  A  man  named  Hatch  built  a 
house  and  proposed  to  call  it  after  himself,  but  it 
never  occurred  to  him  how  precisely  it  would  desig 
nate  a  residence  for  incubating  poultry,  till  somebody 
put  the  words  together  before  his  eyes  :  "  Hatch 
House."  Ming  —  a  name  that  Dickens  might  have 
invented  —  bestowed  the  patronymic  upon  his  house 
in  Missouri,  and  everybody  about  the  place  fell  to 
talking  through  his  nose.  The  big  dinner-bell  said 
nothing  but  "ming";  a  dusty,  snuffling  affair,  jangled 


88  SUMMER- SAVORY. 

with  a  wire,  called  "ming"  in  a  querulous,  nasal 
way,  and  ming  it  was  until,  a  few  months  ago,  the 
old  house  was  burned  down,  and  even  then  it  was 
ming,  for  it  ming-led  with  the  elements.  You  can 
not  burn  such  a  name  out  of  anything! 

There  is  a  public-house  in  Ohio  whose  name,  if 
shouted  at  any  educated  and  edible  fowl  less  tough 
and  overdone  than  a  tailor's  goose,  would  throw  it 
into  fits.  Think  of  yourself  following  off  a  fellow 
who  had  roared  "  The  American  Eagle "  at  you,  and 
some  gamin  in  the  crowd  about  the  depot  crying 
after  you,  "There  goes  a  bite  for  the  'Merican  Eagle !  " 
If  like  Jupiter's  bird  you  could  clasp  a  talon  on  him, 
nothing  but  the  law  against  cruelty  to  animals  would 
prevent  your  making  a  thunderbolt  of  him.  Ameri 
can  is  very  well,  and  Eagle  will  do,  but  American 
Eagle  measures  too  much  from  tip  to  tip. 

There  is  a  funny  little  affectation  of  grandeur  in 
the  way  of  announcing  arrivals  at  modern  caravan 
saries.  Thus  you  read  that  A.  B.  has  "  taken  rooms " 
at  the  Cosmopolitan.  You  call  on  A.  B.  and  you 
find  him  in  number  196,  fourth  floor  back,  quite 
above  the  jurisdiction  of  the  State,  and  higher  than 
you  have  ever  gotten  since  you  took  the  pledge ;  one 
chair,  one  pillow,  and  eyed,  like  a  cyclops,  with  one 
window;  a  room  as  hopelessly  single  as  Adam  seemed 
in  his  bachelorhood.  But  "  rooms "  is  statelier,  and 
we  all  enjoy  it  except  A.  B.,  who  skips  edgewise  to 
and  fro  between  trunk  and  bed,  as  if  he  were  bal 
ancing  to  an  invisible  partner.  But  things  double 


"MINE   INK."  89 

and  magnify  in  an  atoning  way  when  he  comes  to 
pay  the  bill,  and  finds  the  footing  as  high  as  the 
room,  altogether  a  high-toned  institution  from  clerk 
to  closet. 

THE    BUSTLEK. 

I  saw  him  to-day  —  the  bustler.  He  bustled  into 
the  hotel  dining-room  —  the  long,  quiet,  decorous 
apartment  where  everything  is  subdued  into  pleasant 
murmurs  —  and  lifted  up  his  brassy  voice,  so  that 
everybody  looked  and  felt  as  if  a  big  bumblebee  had 
come  blundering  in,  that  they  wanted  to  drive  out 
with  the  broom.  He  talked  as  if  he  knew  more 
about  conversing  with  a  herd  of  cattle  than  with  civil 
people.  And  he  accompanied  himself  with  a  knife- 
and-fork  tattoo,  and  took  two  tines  of  the  latter  in 
his  teeth  like  a  country  singing-master  getting  the 
pitch,  when  the  only  pitch  for  him  should  have  been 
the  pitch  out-of-doors.  He  was  a  vivacious  animal, 
and  suggested  a  stall  or  a  pen,  or  a  yard  with  a  high 
fence;  was  as  breezy  as  a  March  morning,  and  just 
as  disagreeable.  And  how  he  stared  at  you  like  a 
bull's-eye !  He  should  have  been  made  to  shut  up 
like  a  policeman's  lantern,  and  then  kept  shut.  He 
snapped  his  fingers  for  the  dining-room  girls,  as  if  he 
had  lived  in  a  kennel,  and  gave  a  little  whistle  like 
an  impudent  wind  at  a  keyhole.  What  he  meant  by 
all  this  was,  that  it  was  he  himself,  that  he  was 
there, —  that  he  was  made  a  little  first,  and  then  this 
world  was  gotten  ready  for  him  as  soon  as  possible. 

He  is  the  man  to  overwhelm  the  average  hotel  clerk, 
4* 


90  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

buzz  him  down  and  get  number  2,  while  the  mildly- 
spoken  gentleman  who  is  not  a  bumblebee  gets  num 
ber  182,  and  no  elevator.  Bustler  could  do  nothing 
without  noise.  Had  he  happened  to  be  a  tailor,  his 
needle  would  have  creaked  like  a  swinging  sign.  I 
do  not  see  how,  but  it  would.  When  he  drank  you 
heard  him.  When  he  ate,  his  jaws  rattled,  and  you 
might  have  inferred  from  his  shaggy  manner  that  he 
had  taken  a  turn-about  with  Romulus  and  Remus, 
and  been  suckled  by  a  wolf.  I  always  suspect  that 
such  a  man  had  no  sisters,  in  the  gentle  sense  of  the 
word;  and  that  if  he  had  any  at  all,  they  were  only 
boys  in  petticoats. 

ADONIS. 

The  hotel  clerk,  who  equitably  parts  his  hair  in 
a  hemicranian  way,  and  waves  it  out  in  two  pinions 
till  be  looks  a  little  like  Mercury  when  he  puts  on 
his  winged  cap  and  gets  ready  to  fly ;  who  wears 
white  porcelain  shirt  bosoms  and  a  seal  ring,  with 
a  stone  in  it  big  enough  to  kill  Goliah  if  little  David 
had  the  handling  of  it;  who  looks  you  over  in  a 
supercilious  way,  and  puts  you  on  the  fifth  floor  back 
because  there  is  a  dent  in  your  hat,  and  your  coat 
shows  the  ghost  of  a  chalk-mark  on  a  seam  or  two  — 
this  fragrant  bandbox  of  a  man  always  terrifies  me. 
The  higher  he  puts  me  up,  the  lower  he  puts  me 
down.  He  degrades  me  in  the  sight  of  the  bell-boys, 
the  porters,  the  chambermaids  and  the  office  loungers. 
Even  the  bit  of  a  bell-boy  that  shows  me  skyward, 


"MINE    INK."  91 


goes  leaping  up  the  four  flights  of  stairs  like  a  ship's 
monkey  up  the  ratlines,  and  sometimes  he  is  out  of 
sight  altogether. 

Had  I  been  assigned  to  room  "  10,"  he  would  have 
paced  demurely  before  me  like  a  little  man,  and  I 
should  have  given  him  a  quarter.  Nobody  whips  a 
brush  out  from  under  his  arm,  and  pursues  me  and 
whisks  my  coat  here  and  there,  as  if  he  were  seeing 
how  near  he  could  come  to  it  and  not  touch  it,  and 
the  reason  is  that  I  am  the  man  in  u  240."  Then 
my  bell  is  so  far  off  and  so  faint  that  no  one  hears 
it,  and,  if  heard,  it  gives  no  one  any  trouble.  It  is 
as  useless  as  a  Canterbury-bell  with  a  string  to  it. 
Even  the  waiters  in  the  dining-room  have  found  rne 
out.  They  know  the  man  from  "  240,"  and  they 
treat  me  as  if  I  were  an  object  of  charity.  They 
never  look  my  way,  and  the  ear  that  happens  to  be 
next  to  me  as  they  pass  is  always  a  little  out  of 
order.  They  do  not  suspect  that  I  am  the  victim 
of  the  vicious  geography  of  that  capillary  Adonis  in 
the  office.  But  everything  corresponds,  and  when 
the  bill  is  presented  it  proves  to  be  on  the  same  floor. 
It  is  a  high-toned  proceeding  altogether.  What  shall 
be  done  with  that  clerk?  If  there  were  only  one 
of  him,  a  shilling's  worth  of  halter  would  do,  but 
who  can  afford  to  keep  a  ropewalk  running  for  the 
manufacture  of  halters  for  the  execution  of  Adonises? 

An  Adonis  refused  John  J.  Audubon,  the  orni 
thologist,  a  room  at  a  Niagara  hotel.  He  stood  and 
lied  to  him  with  a  regretful  smile  that  the  rooms 


92  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

were  all  taken.  And  it  was  simply  because  Mr.  Au- 
dubon's  boots  lacked  a  shine,  and  the  best  side  of 
him  was  not  the  outside  of  him.  James  G.  Percival, 
the  poet,  was  put  into  a  sky-parlor  in  Galena,  be 
cause  there  wasn't  brass  enough  in  him  to  make  a 
pin,  and  Adonis  was  a  fool.  But  then  Mr.  Percival 
would  hardly  have  cared  had  they  assigned  him  quar 
ters  above  the  eaves.  And  when  the  writer,  seeing 
his  name  upon  the  register,  inquired  for  him,  and 
explained  who  and  what  he  was,  Adonis  was  repri 
manded  by  the  proprietor,  and  the  proprietor  apolo 
gized  to  the  poet,  and  reduced  him  to  the  first  floor 
in  half  an  hour,  but  Mr.  Percival  just  ate  his  break 
fast  and  went  away.  Adonis  mistook  Lord  Morpeth's 
valet  for  Lord  Morpeth's  self  at  Detroit.  You  get 
that  clerk's  idea  of  nobility  when  he  mistook  the 
man  for  the  master,  and  himself  for  a  gentleman. 
But  all  hotel  clerks  are  not  Adonises. 

A    BORDER    TAVERN. 

Were  you  ever  a  guest  at  a  border  tavern?  The 
landlord  is  a  tall  Kentucky  hunter.  Blooded  dogs  — 
lean,  liver-colored,  arid  as  full  of  points  as  a  hedge 
hog —  lie  gaping  about  the  floor,  or  hunting  in  their 
dreams  with  yelps  that  die  in  their  throats.  A  ped 
dler  enriches  the  animal  kingdom  ;  one  of  those  fel 
lows  that  possess  all  a  blue-jay's  impudence  and  none 
of  its  beauty.  Some  rough  fellows  just  out  of  the 
golden  mountains,  breeched  in  buckskin,  f rocked  and 
belted ;  a  knife  in  a  leather  sheath,  depending  like 


93 

Macbeth's  ghostly  dagger,  "  the  handle  toward  my 
hand " ;  tangled  and  tawny,  as  to  beard  and  hair,  as 
the  tail  of  a  motherless  colt  on  a  burry  common, 
snuffing  the  supper,  pace  the  piazza  with  the  springy 
gait  of  tigers  before  feeding-time.  At  the  first  click 
of  the  supper-room  door  latch  there  is  a  plunge  of 
the  sharp-set  crowd  for  the  tables,  one  or  two  being 
just  too  late  for  a  plate,  and  turning  their  surly 
faces  toward  the  board  as  they  retreat,  to  wait  their 
turn,  with  much  the  expression  of  a  little  dog  driven 
away  from  a  coveted  bone  by  a  big  one.  And  this 
brings  me  to  say  that  if  you  are  going  a  journey 
in  regions  where  it  is  "first  come  first  served,"  the 
most  serviceable  piece  of  baggage  you  can  take  with 
you  is  a  woman.  If  you  have  none,  then  marry 
one,  for  you  are  not  thoroughly  equipped  for  the 
road  till  you  do.  When  dinner  is  ready  you  follow 
in  her  blessed  wake,  and  are  snugly  seated  beside 
her  and  exactly  opposite  the  platter  of  chickens,  be 
fore  the  hirsute  crowd,  womanless  as  Adam  was  till 
he  fell  into  a  deep  sleep,  are  let  in  at  all.  There 
you  are,  and  there  they  are.  You  t wain-one,  with 
the  two  best  chairs  in  the  house,  served  and  smiled 
on.  Look  down  the  table  at  the  unhappy  fellows, 
some  of  them  actually  bottoming  the  chairs  they 
occupy,  and  the  arms  and  hands  reaching  in  every 
direction  across  the  table  like  the  tentacular  of  a 
gigantic  polypus.  When  night  comes,  it  is  not  yon 
that  shift  uneasily  from  side  to  side  on  the  bar-room 
floor.  If  there  is  any  best  bed  she  gets  it.  More 


94  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

than  all  this,  a  woman  keeps  you  "upon  your  honor"; 
you  are  pretty  sure  to  behave  yourself  all  the  way. 

The  conclusion  is  as  strong  as  a  lariat,  that  trav 
eling  bachelors  have  forgotten  something,  and  that 
if  a  woman  hears  a  man  sneer  about  her  troublesome 
sex,  and  their  inevitable  band-box,  and  then  in  some 
weak  moment  he  says  to  her,  "  Will  you?" — an  she 
be  wise  she  will  be  cautious.  Men  are  not  a  tithe 
of  the  help  to  women  on  a  journey  that  the  latter, 
in  their  modesty  or  their  ignorance  —  I  beg  pardon, 
which?  —  are  always  conceding.  Blessed  be  nothing! 
A  lone  woman  can-  make  the  transit  of  the  American 
continent  like  Venus  crossing  the  sun,  without  either 
insult  or  danger." 

THE    OLD    LANDLORD    AND    THE    NEW. 

Honest  and  thoroughly  English  words  are  landlord 
and  landlady,  and  used  to  lit  what  they  were  meant 
for,  like  Alexandre's  gloves.  They  name  a  pair  of 
bread-keepers  and  loaf-givers  who  feed  travelers.  In 
fact,  in  a  nice,  white  whcaten  sense,  they  are  a  brace 
of  loafers.  But  in  pretentious  hotels  the  landlady  is 
about  as  nearly  extinct  as  the  mastodon.  She  has  been 
succeeded  by  the  housekeeper.  The  landlord  is  not 
utterly  abolished,  but  he  is  often  gilt-edged,  bound  in 
Turkey  and  profusely  illustrated.  No  longer  does  he 
carve  the  succulent  pig  and  the  noble  roast.  No 
longer  do  the  fowls,  breasted  like  dead  knights  in 
armor  on  a  monument,  fall  to  pieces  beneath  the 
dexterous  hints  of  the  carving  knife.  No  longer, 


95 

when  the  guests  are  served,  does  he  wash  his  hos 
pitable  hands  in  invisible  water  before  their  eyes,  and 
wish  that  "good  digestion  may  wait  on  appetite,  and 
health  on  both."  He  is  succeeded  by  a  clerk  and  a 
steward. 

In  the  dining-room  swarm  a  head-waiter  and  his 
underlings  in  black  and  white,  to  wit:  faces  and 
aprons,  who  stand  behind  your  chair  and  regard  your 
organ  of  self-esteem  and  look  down  the  back  of  your 
neck,  and  watch  your  fork  and  your  spoon  and  your 
plate  and  yourself,  and  never  wink  once.  When  you 
have  done  they  have  done.  They  know  you  as  an 
omnivorous  animal  ab  ovo  usque  ad  mala  —  from  the 
egg  to  the  apples.  No  need  to  say  or  sing,  "  Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan,"  for  that  is  the  mischief  of 
it :  he  is  there  already  and  all  the  time. 

The  first  landlord  I  ever  saw  is  but  just  dead,  and 
he  was  an  old  man  in  the  beginning  —  my  beginning. 
He  kept  a  stage-house  on  the  old  State  Road,  as  far 
north  as  the  Black  River  Country.  It  was  an  old- 
time  inn  with  a  long,  low,  hospitable  stoop,  pulled 
down  over  the  lower  row  of  front  windows  like  a 
broad-brimmed  hat,  a  world  too  big,  fallen  over  an 
urchin's  eyebrows.  Along  the  wall  beneath  this  stoop 
was  a  hospitable  bench.  Within  the  wide  door  was 
the  bar-room,  with  a  great  hospitable  Franklin  and 
chuckle-headed  andirons  with  slender  crooked  necks 
craning  away  from  the  maple  logs  as  if  they  were 
afraid  of  burning  their  brains  out.  Across  the  room 
from  the  fiery  cavern  was  "  the  bunk,"  a  seat  by  day 


96  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

and  a  bed  by  night.  Above  it  hung  a  stage- driver's 
whip,  with  an  open-mouthed  tin  horn  in  the  act  of 
swallowing  the  handle,  and  the  stock  coiled  about 
like  the  hapless  Laocoon  by  a  long  and  snaky  lash 
with  a  pink-silk  tail.  Beside  the  whip  a  shaggy 
overcoat,  a  long  red  muffler,  a  buffalo  robe,  and  a 
tin  lantern  tattooed  like  a  Polynesian.  Upon  the 
wall  the  tatter  of  an  old  menagerie  show-bill,  where 
a  spotted  leopard,  partly  loosened  from  the  plaster, 
wagged  his  tail  in  a  strangely  familiar  way  in  the 
little  breaths  of  air  from  the  ever-opening  door.  But 
the  marvel  of  the  place  was  the  bar  —  a  cage  of  tall, 
sharp  pickets,  and  within  it  "  black  spirits  and  white, 
blue  spirits  and  gray."  In  the  fence  was  a  wicket 
window  that  lifted  like  a  portcullis ;  and  upon  the 
little  ledge  beneath  it  a  half-grown  tumbler  of  green 
glass  was  set  forth,  and  a  portly  decanter  of  some 
amber  liquid,  wherein  rolled  lazy  lemons  or  cherries, 
or  sprigs  of  tansy  a  little  pale  from  drowning— or  a 
blood-red  port  that  came  across  the  sea,  or  something 
bluish  from  the  Indies.  "Crusaders"  were  not  yet. 

In  the  dining-room  there  were  no  sable  waiters, 
and  no  bills  of  fare  with  impossible  combinations  of 
letters  naming  improbable  things,  but  good  and 
abundant  food  —  sugar  that  looked  as  if  it  had  been 
quarried,  and  white  as  Parian  marble;  pure  coffee  fit 
for  Turks,  and  tea  for  mandarins;  and  withal  a 
hearty  welcome.  When  bedward  bound,  a  pair  of 
sheepskin  slippers  were  produced  from  a  closet  in  the 
bar,  and  "  the  brief  candle  "  that  Shakspeare  mentions, 


MINE   INN.  97 

and  you  were  shown  to  a  bed  fat  as  Falstaff,  to  which 
whole  flocks  of  geese  paid  feathery  tribute.  Mat 
tresses  were  not  yet. 

That  first  landlord  was  a  hero  to  me.  He  linked 
the  small  village  to  the  big  world.  He  was  to 
strangers  what  the  mayor  is  now.  He  extended  them 
the  freedom  of  the  city  for  two  shillings  a  meal. 
There  were  shillings  as  well  as  "giants  in  those 
days."  By  the  way:  when  an  American  tradesman 
tells  you  an  article  is  a  shilling,  knowing  that  a  single 
shilling  is  a  fiction  and  a  delusion,  he  is  joking  at 
your  expense,  and  lacks  but  very  little  of  being  an 
honest  man,  for  he  comes  within  half  a  cent  of  it! 
5 


CHAPTER  XL 

CARAVAN. 

IT  was  from  that  old  village  stage-house  the  writer 
went  abroad, —  to  Bengal,  Asia,  Africa  and  the 
Brazils, —  went  and  returned  the  same  day!  Attached 
to  the  inn  was  a  shed  for  the  sheltering  of  farmers' 
horses  on  rainy  days  and  Sundays.  Through  that 
shed  wide  doors  opened  into  a  stable-yard,  walled  in 
on  all  sides  by  barns.  In  that  yard  the  Caravan  was 
exhibited.  Think  of  that,  ye  Barn  urns  and  Fore- 
paughs  of  the  four-footed  and  far-fetched !  The  ring 
for  the  pony  and  his  smutty-faced  Darwinian  rider 
was  tan-barked  off  in  the  middle  of  the  small  area; 
the  cages  were  drawn  up  around  like  a  corral ;  the 
elephant  was  in  the  great  barn,  with  a  chain  about 
his  hind-foot,  marking  time,  but  never  marching,  after 
the  manner  of  chained  elephants,  and  feeling  through 
the  cracks  between  the  loose  boards  overhead  for 
stray  wisps  of  hay.  And  so,  for  a  silver  shilling,  I 
went  to  foreign  lands. 

Everybody  has  a  golden  age.  It  is  childhood. 
Mankind  and  poultry  are  alike, —  both  happiest  and 
tenderest  when  spring  chickens.  In  the  golden  age 
happiness  is  the  cheapest  thing  going.  You  have 


THE    CARAVAN.  99 

seen  the  time  you  could  buy  it  for  sixpence,  and 
have  change  corning.  I  have  bought  perfect  bliss  for 
a  cent.  It  looked  like  a  basswood  whistle,  but  it  was 
bliss.  The  E-flat  bugle  of  that  lark  among  players 
in  the  Marine  Band  at  Washington  never  sounded 
half  so  sweet  to  me  as  that  bit  of  piping  basswood. 
The  day  I  am  writing  of,  happiness  cost  one  shil 
ling,  and  every  village  boy  got  the  worth  of  his 
money. 

There  was  a  hyena  that  looked  a  little  like  a  fam 
ished  and  angry  hog,  with  a  hoarse,  rough  snort,  like 
a  saw-mill.  He  snapped  at  the  keeper  when  he 
touched  him  with  a  rawhide;  snapped  when  he  gave 
him  his  dinner.  In  fact,  the  keeper  said  the  creature 
could  act  more  like  a  human  being  than  any  other 
beast  in  the  Caravan.  Ingratitude  generally  goes  on 
two  feet,  but  here  it  had  taken  to  all  fours,  and 
turned  quadruped. 

THE    HEAD    KEEPER. 

The  head  keeper  inspired  us  with  great  "respect, 
and  we  thought  he  had  captured  the  beasts  with  his 
own  hand.  He  had  a  red  face,  and  a  loud  voice 
with  a  brogue  and  an  R  in  it.  When  he  roused  a 
great  fellow  in  a  striped  jacket  he  said,  "  Ladies  and 
gentlemen,  this  is  the  R-royal  Bengal  tiger-r  of  Asia, 
nine  year-rs  owld,"  and  the  subject  of  tlie  biography 
gave  a  growl.  "  He  is  car-rnivor-rous  and  cr-ruel  as 
the  gr-rave,  and  is  said  to  have  devour-red  sever-ral 
women  and  childr-ren  in  his  native  jungles.  He  was 


100  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

taken  when  full  gr-rown  and  subdued  with  r-red  hot 
ir-rons."  Here  there  was  a  sensation  in  the  audience, 
and  the  tiger  swung  open  his  jaws  that  creaked  in 
the  hinges  with  a  sort  of  rusty  growl,  displayed  a 
set  of  cutlery,  and  gave  a  great  yawn,  as  if  he  were 
tired  of  the  account  of  himself.  But  then  he  had 
heard  it  before,  and  we  never  had.  It  was  all  new 
to  us,  and  horrible  and  good ! 

THE    LIONS. 

And  so  the  keeper  made  the  tour  of  the  monsters 
of  foreign  lands,  and  threw  us  little  ragged  scraps 
of  Goldsmith's  Animated  Nature,  much  as  he  fed 
the  animals  after  a  while  with  poor  beef.  He  stirred 
up  the  lion,  and  when  Leo  shook  himself  and  stood 
up  on  his  feet,  what  with  his  imposing  front  lighted 
with  two  great  yellow  eyes,  his  mighty  mane,  and 
not  much  of  any  lody  to  back  it  up,  he  looked  like 
a  four-footed  head.  Nature  took  so  much  pains  with 
the  hair  that  she  seems  to  have  hurried  the  work 
and  brought  the  beast  to  a  premature  end.  That 
hair  not  only  saves  the  lion  from  contempt,  but  in 
spires  respect  for  what  would  otherwise  be  a  much 
exaggerated  and  unpleasant  cat.  Touched  up  and 
rounded  out,  here  and  there,  with  abundant  curls,  the 
color  of  Petrarch's  Laura's  tresses,  he  looks  stately  as 
a  full-wigged  lord-mayor  of  London,  and  wise  enough 
to  sit  upon  the  Queen's  Bench. 

The  young  lion  of  Timnath  that  Samson  unhinged, 
if  we  may  believe  the  old  Bible  picture,  and  made  a 


THE    CARAVAN.  101 

bee-hive  of,  and  propounded  the  first  recorded  riddle 
thereon,  "out  of  the  eater  came  forth  meat,  and  out 
of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness,"  and  offered  every 
body  two  and  a-half  dozen  shirts  if  they  found  it  out 
in  a  week, —  that  lion  was  put  to  the  next  best  use 
that  lion  could  possibly  be;  the  very  best  being  to 
catch  him  and  cage  him  and  show  him  to  boys! 
Rampant,  he  shows  well  on  royal  arms.  As  an  em 
blem  he  is  splendid,  but  personally  he  is  unwholesome 
and  discreet.  When  the  ass  masqueraded  in  a  lion's 
skin,  he  had  the  best  of  the  beast  on  his  shoulders. 

There  are  several  kinds  of  lions  the  keeper  never 
named.  There  are  the  lion  of  St.  Mark,  and  Gustavus 
Adolphus  the  lion  of  the  north,  and  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  the  lion  of  the  sea,  and  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion, 
and  ^Esop's  lion  that  the  mouse  befriended,  and  the 
British  lion.  The  keeper  had  only  one  variety,  but 
he  made  the  most  of  him,  for  he  let  him  begin  to 
swallow  him,  by  putting  his  head  into  the  beast's 
mouth,  and  he  bade  him  roar.  A  sound  like  a  wind 
in  a  cave  sent  a  chilly  wave  down  our  unaccustomed 
spinal  marrows.  Somehow  we  seemed  to  hear  it  with 
the  "  small  of  the  back ! "  Then  the  man  looked  as 
complacent  as  if  he  himself  had  done  the  roaring, 
and  our  nervous  start  gave  him  great  delight,  and  we 
were  glad  because  we  had  been  scared,  and  so  every 
body  was  satisfied.  There  are  many  lions  not  dwell 
ing  in  deserts  and  not  kept  in  cages. 


102  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

LEOPARDS    AND    THEIR    HUMAN    LIKES. 

Then  the  keeper  thrust  his  whip  into  the  leopards' 
cage,  and  they  leaped  over  it  to  and  fro,  to  and  fro, 
as  lightly  as  a  yellow-bird  flies  over  a  currant-bush. 
How  gracefully  they  walked,  with  a  long  free  stride, 
as  we  think  Apollo  walked  when  he  went  forth  for 
a  little  archery  practice.  They  purred,  like  the  hum 
of  a  little  wheel,  and  their  fawn-colored  fur  was  dotted 
off  with  clusters  of  black  cherries,  and  their  throats 
were  as  white  as  a  lady's  chemisette,  and  their  long, 
fine  whiskers  were  just  a  stealthy  touch  longer  than 
their  bodies  were  wide,  so  that  what  the  feelers  could 
not  clear  the  bodies  wouldn't  try  to.  The  velvet  in  the 
foot  and  the  nerve  in  the  whisker  told  what  they  were 
made  and  meant  for!  There  are  folks,  whose  family 
name  is  not  leopard,  with  the  sensitive  mustache  and 
the  still  step.  They  never  make  a  bold  break,  but  go 
feeling  noiselessly  about.  The  best  way  to  trust  them 
is  to  make  a  Thomas  of  yourself  and  doubt  them. 

About  feet:  forget  a  mule's  ears  and  look  at  his 
feet.  No  Arabian  barb  ever  had  a  foot  so  small  and 
lady-like.  It  is  as  handsome  as  a  sea-shell.  There 
is  a  belief  that  small  feet  do  not  naturally  belong 
to  large  understandings.  They  say  that  great  men 
almost  always  have  large  feet,  though  large  men 
often  get  about  in  "  number  fives."  However  this 
may  be,  there  is  something  lacking  in  a  hale,  hearty 
man  who  goes  shuffling  about  the  streets  in  slippers, 
and  I  don't  think  it  is  leather.  A  Christian  boy's 


THE    CARAVAN.  103 

first  manly  aspiration  is  boots.  Ethan  Allen  would 
hardly  have  chucked  Ticonderoga  into  his  game-bag 
just  by  asking  for  it.  It  was  less  a  question  of  battle 
than  of  boots  and  breeches.  What  could  the  bare 
footed,  Highlander-legged  commander  of  the  rugged 
old  fortress  do,  when  summoned,  but  surrender  and 
dress  himself?  He  'might  have  been  brave  as  several 
Caesars,  but  what  if  Allen  had  trodden  on  his  toes 
with  those  jack-boots  of  his !  Figuratively  and  liter 
ally,  a  man  is  manliest  in  boots.  You  hear  his  com 
ing;  the  firm,  unmuffled  .step.  His  trail  is  riot  dim, 
like  a  savage's.  He  makes  a  legible  track.  There  is 
nothing  of  stealth  or  long  whisker  or  velvet  feet  about 
him.  In  nature  and  in  name  he  is  not  a  leopard. 

THE    ELEPHANT THEN-    AND    SINCE. 

Then  the  big  barn-doors  were  opened,  and  an  ele 
phant, —  it  was  Romulus  or  Columbus  or  Hannibal, — 
was  led  forth  by  a  man  armed  with  a  pike-staff,  and 
all  the  boys  held  their  breath.  Two  dusty  leather 
aprons  without  strings  were  hung  each  side  of  his 
head  for  ears,  and  two  small  crevices  for  eyes  were 
punctured  in  the  smoky  plaster  dead  wall  of  his 
countenance ;  and  he  carried  a  couple  of  tusks  at 
trail  arms  in  front  of  him,  and  his  tail  depended  like 
a  bell-rope  behind  him,  and  the  general  expression  of 
his  body  was  that  of  an  overgrown  outdoor  oven,  and 
he  went  around  the  ring  in  a  make-haste-slowly,  sham 
bling  way.  Then  he  knelt,  and  his  backbone  was 
lined  with  little  boys  as  thick  as  they  could  stick,  and 
he  got  up,  a  fourth  at  a  time,  and  when  he  was  all 


104  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

up  and  had  given  the  fellows  a  -short  ride,  he  was 
commanded  to  shake  them  off.  The  ashen  hide, 
rigged  upon  rollers,  apparently,  for  the  sake  of  equal 
izing  the  wear,  rolled  around  him  a  couple  of  times 
at  the  word,  and  those  boys  fell  off  like  apples  from 
a  clubbed  tree,  and  scudded  back  into  the  crowd  like 
quails  into  tall  grass.  Then  the  keeper  lay  upon  his 
tusks,  as  in  an  ivory  cradle,  and  was  rocked  up  and 
down  in  an  airy  and  oriental  way.  Last,  we  were  told 
about  the  elephant's  sagacity  and  tenderness  and  gen 
eral  loftiness  of  character,  and  a  number  of  other 
qualities  that  he  never  was  guilty  of,  and  the  creature 
spoke  for  himself  and  lifted  his  trunk  and  trumpeted, 
and  shambled  back  to  the  barn  and  drank  a  barrel 
of  water.  We  have  all  seen  the  elephant  since.  Some 
of  us  have  had  one,  and  it  has  generally  proved  the 
most  costly  and  worthless  of  all  our  possessions.  An 
elephant  in  the  parlor  has  been  known  to  eat  up  the 
owner's  kitchen  and  credit.  An  elephant  in  the  state 
has  beggared  the  people.  An  elephant  of  a  doctrine 
in  the  church  has  given  it  more  trouble  sometimes 
than  all  the  religion  it  could  muster.  Elephants  gen 
erally  are  architecturally  Gothic  and  spiritually  Goths. 

THE    MONKEY. 

The  charm  and  wonder  of  the  day  came  last.  Into 
the  ring  dashed  a  Shetland  pony,  all  mane  and  tail 
and  lively  as  a  grig,  and  upon  him  "  Captain  Jack,"- 
not  the  Modoc,  but  the  monkey.  The  sooty-faced  bur 
lesque  was  in  uniform  of  a  curious  combination  of 
cut  and  color,  for  while  the  coat  was  a  wide-flapped 


THE   CARAVAN".  105 

old  Continental  affair,  it  flared  as  red  as  a  British 
trooper's  jacket,  and  the  tip  of  a  tail  showing  below 
the  skirt  behind  gave  a  sinister,  not  to  say  satanic, 
touch  to  his  figure.  Upon  his  head,  that  bobbed 
about  like  a  cocoanut  in  rough  water,  was  a  cocked 
hat  with  a  feather  in  it.  And  this  fellow  handled 
the  reins  and  stood  erect  upon  the  saddle,  while  the 
master's  whip  cracked  like  a  pistol,  and  around  the 
ring  the  pony  buckled,  and  the  bugles  blew  and  the 
drums  rolled,  and  the  crowd  shouted  and  everybody 
was  pleased  and  nobody  was  ashamed  to  show  it. 
Monkeys  are  just  as  popular  and  quite  as  absurd  as 
they  ever  were,  but  people  regard  them  covertly,  out 
of  the  corners  of  their  eyes.  "  Captain  Jack "  has 
ceased  to  be  a  hero.  How  we  all  envied  that  monkey 
the  possession  of  the  pony !  I  think  we  could  have 
mustered  a  dozen  boys  who  were  in  doubt  whether 
they  would  rather  have  the  monkey  without  the  pony, 
or  le  the  monkey  and  have  the  pony !  For  three 
months  we  all  "played  caravan"  on  Saturday  after 
noons.  We  were  tigers,  lions  and  leopards  by  turns. 
The  biggest  of  us  made  poor  elephants,  while  the 
most  of  us  were  fleet  of  foot  as  the  Shetlander;  but 
in  one  thing  \ve  were  a  triumph,  for  we  all  made 
excellent  monkeys! 

Gone  is  the  old  Caravan.  The  elephant  unpacked 
his  trunk  long  ago,  but  among  all  my  landlord's  guests 
none  hold  a  brighter  place  in  memory  than  the  guests 
that  halted  in  the  barnyard,  for  so  it  was  that  I  went 
to  Bengal,  Asia,  Africa  and  the  Brazils. 


CHAPTEE  XII. 

EXCURSIONS. 

EXCURSION  means  getting  out  of  yourself  in  a 
hurry.  That  is  what  everybody  is  doing  in 
summer  days.  A  man  will  make  a  more  violent  effort 
to  rest  than  to  do  anything  else  under  the  sun.  And 
it  is  a  luxury  because  he  makes  it  for  nothing,  while 
the  average  efforts  of  his  life  are  made  for  money. 
When  the  excursion  fit  is  on,  it  is  not  the  least  like 
hydrophobia,  for  everybody  takes  to  water  like  a  duck, 
—  salt  water,  fresh  water,  spring  water,  mineral  water, 
cold  water,  hot  water,  and  if  not  water  then  mount 
ains.  He  turns  into  a  chamois,  and  goes  skipping 
among  the  cliffs.  When  a  man  is  about  to  rest,  he 
sits  up  all  night  to  be  ready  to  go  in  the  morning. 
He  is  whisked  off  fifty  or  a  hundred  miles,  and  trod 
den  on  and  rained  on,  and  squeezed  and  punched, 
and  he  spoils  his  hat,  and  his  shirt-collar  wilts,  and 
he  is  half-starved,  and  he  sees  water  and  pays  five 
dollars  and  is  happy.  But  he  has  a  girl  with  him,— 
perhaps  an  old  one,  perhaps  not.  And  she  wears  a 
white  dress  and  a  blue  sash  and  a  saucy  hat,  and  her 
hair  flies,  and  little  rivers  of  dusty  perspiration  are 
mapped  upon  her  pretty  face,  and  she  wilts  like  a 
morning-glory. 

106 


EXCURSIONS.  107 

Trains  pass  every  day  bound  for  Niagara,  Chautau- 
qna  Lake,  Watkins  Glen, —  everywhere.  One  of  thirty- 
six  cars  and  half  a  mile  long,  pushed  and  pulled  by 
a  couple  of  engines  that  looked  as  if  they  were  quar 
reling  about  who  should  have  the  train,  passed  yester 
day.  It  carried  twenty-two  hundred  excursionists, 
who  represented  at  least  five  thousand  dollars'  worth 
of  solid  comfort  and  profound  rest.  They  hung  out  of 
windows  and  piled  upon  platforms  like  swarms  of 
young  bees  upon  apple-tree  limbs.  Their  faces  were 
widened  out  with  satisfaction, —  they  looked  as  crum 
pled  as  tea-leaves,  and  were  as  dusty  as  millers.  They 
had  a  band  with  them,  marked  like  a  flock  of  bobolinks, 
and  you  heard  the  trombone  growling  in  his  sleep. 


The  man  is  always  on  board  who  wears  his  best 
clothes  and  his  other  hat.  He  looks  like  a  tailor's 
pattern  that  has  been  stepped  on  in  a  damp  day. 
His  hat  is  the  color  of  a  badger,  he  has  got  a  cinder 
in  his  eye,  some  heel  has  had  a  snap  at  one  of  his 
patent-leathers  and  left  a  little  semicircle  of  what 
looks  like  teeth-prints,  he  has  lost  his  handkerchief, 
and  furtively  wipes  his  happy  face  with  a  coat-cuff. 
He  has  stood  up  for  the  last  twenty  miles.  He  might 
have  edged  in,  if  he  could  have  found  an  edge  of  him 
self  anywhere,  but  he  was  afraid  somebody  would  offer 
to  sit  on  him,  and  he  should  wrinkle  his  coat-skirts, 
and  make  the  knees  of  his  pantaloons  look  like  a 
couple  of  stove-pipe  elbows.  Such  people  would  be 


108  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

handier  if  the  ends  of  a  kettle-bail  were  slipped  into 
their  ears,  that  so  they  might  be  hung  up  out  of  harm's 
way. 


There  is  the  woman  to  match  him, —  the  Gill  of  the 
Jack  aforesaid.  She  is  attired  at  once  in  company 
dress,  and  company  manners.  She  looks  as  if  she  had 
been  sent  to  the  laundry  by  mistake, —  washed,  half- 
dried,  and  never  ironed.  She  pulls  herself  together 
on  this  side  and  that  with  an  air,  when  anybody  jostles 
her.  But  then  if  she  didn't  want  to  be  squeezed,  she 
shouldn't  have  been  a  lemon. 

Yonder  is  a  man  in  an  Ulster  duster,  whose  mate 
rial  once  sported  blue  blossoms.  It  is  linen,  and  he 
is  sensible ;  but  then  it  hangs  about  him  much  as 
if  he  had  clothed  himself  in  a  loose  family  umbrella, 
and  altogether  he  resembles  a  specimen  of  unhusked 
corn  with  a  withered  ear  in  it.  Like  Desdemona's 
handkerchief,  he  is  "  too  little."  There,  is  a  lady  under 
a  low-browed  straw  roof,  as  comfortable  to  live  in  as 
a  maple  shadow  in  a  sultry  day.  Here  is  a  girl  with 
her  elegant  apparel  pinned  back  so  far  that  you  might 
think  she  was  dressed  for  posterity,  instead  of  the  pres 
ent  generation.  Had  she  pinned  her  garments  back 
a  trifle  farther,  she  would  have  left  home  without 
them,  and  worn  something  more  becoming.  She  has 
declined  three  chances  to  sit  down.  But  yonder  is  a 
pair  in  cool,  clean  linen  throughout,  dust-proof,  and 
pleasant  to  look  at  as  a  couple  of  water-lilies. 


EXCURSIONS.  109 

THE    POETRY    OF    PICNICS. 

Excursions  frequently  end  in  that  disaster  called  a 
picnic.  A  sublime  contempt  for  comfort,  and  plenty 
of  spirits,  are  essential  to  its  enjoyment.  The  particular 
brand  referred  to  is  "Youthful  Spirits."  If  a  man 
hasn't  a  boy  in  his  jacket, —  if  a  woman  has  traveled 
life's  road  so  long  that  she  is  out  of  sight  of  herself 
in  pantalets  and  calico  frock,  then  let  the  twain  read 
this  authentic  history  of  picnics  and  remain  at  home. 

Quite  everybody  now  is  munching  something  under 
a  tree,  that  is  such  a  mixture  of  cake,  sandwiches, 
pickles,  and  cheese,  that  it  has  about  as  many  flavors 
as  that  blessed  city  of  Cologne  had  odors,  not  one  of 
which  was  cologne.  The  munching  is  diversified  by 
discovering  long-bodied  ants  in  the  jelly-cup, —  ants 
that  instead  of  "going  to"  as  directed  in  the  Bible, 
you  immediately  go  for.  Then  Uncle  Toby's  fly,  that 
he  sweetly  said  there  was  room  for,  is  floating  in  the 
iced  tea ;  and  one  of  those  darting  spiders  that  out 
lines  chain-lightning  has  you  by  the  nape  of  the  neck; 
and  a  wood-tick  has  begun  to  picnic  on  that  part  of 
you  commonly  called  calf,  as  if,  considering  where  you 
have  been  "left"  to  go,  the  tick  could  have  nibbled  you 
anywhere  without  encountering  veal !  Then  the  log 
where  you  sit  is  about  as  pleasant  as  a  rnoss-grown 
fog-bank  would  be,  and  a  bug  has  gone  into  "  the 
fearful  hollow  "  of  your  ear,  and  a  catarrh  has  entered 
your  head,  arid  you  wet  your  feet  in  the  boat,  and 
you  are  so  mussed  and  mottled  with  two  kinds  of  jam 


110  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

that  you  resemble  a  New  Zealander  in  full  tattoo, 
after  a  fight.  You  wear  good  clothes  and  take  good 
victuals,  and  spoil  them  all.  And  then  it  rains! 
You  get  under  a  tree,  but,  as  with  a  pea-straw  roof,  it 
rains  harder  there  than  anywhere  else ;  and  you  begin 
to  show  out  your  character  by  turning  green  where 
yon  knelt  in  the  splashed  grass.  But  that  brand  of 
spirits  sustains  you,  and  the  more  mishaps  there  are, 
the  jollier  you  grow.  In  a  word,  the  misery  of  the 
thing  is  the  pleasure  of  it. 

Picnics  are  sometimes  made  for  the  " benefit"  of 
some  good  cause,  but  never  of  the  performers.  That 
pitiful  picture  of  poor  Mrs.  Rogers,  "  nine  small  chil 
dren  and  one  at  the  breast,"  following  Mr.  Rogers 
on  his  way  to  the  stake,  was  a  sort  of  picnic  with 
one  martyr,  while  in  the  picnics  I  write  of  there  are 
many. 

There  is  an  aboriginal  streak  in  men  and  women, 
a  bit  of  undeveloped  savage.  Thus  a  number  of  resi 
dents  of  La  Porte,  Indiana,  went  and  camped  out 
for  a  week  in  plain  sight  of  the  city !  It  was  a  sort 
of  (shipyard  picnic.  Had  they  been  houseless  gyp 
sies,  it  would  have  been  no  marvel,  but  they  all  de 
serted  comfortable  homes,  and,  like  Nebuchadnezzar, 
went  out  to  grass  without  being  turned  out.  It  was 
a  little  like  going  to  the  washtub  to  fish. 

Seriously,  there  may  be  worse  social  devices  than 
picnics.  They  let  stilted  people  down  and  timid  peo 
ple  out,  for  a  bashful  man  is  never  so  bold  as  in 
that  well-dressed  and  well-disposed  mob  called  a  pic- 


EXCURSIONS.  Ill 

nic  party.  And  then  they  act  more  like  themselves 
out-of-doors  in  the  woods  than  they  do  in  parlors. 
People  who  eat  rice  by  the  kernel  with  a  fork,  and 
taste  things  here  and  there  in  a  delicate  way,  delight 
to  return  to  primeval  fingers,  and  bravely  grasp  a 
drumstick  or  gnaw  some  other  bone.  They  act  as 
live  clams  do  that  you  keep  in  the  cellar  sometimes. 
When  in  the  dark  they  open  their  uneloquent  mouths, 
but  the  moment  you  approach  with  a  light,  click,  click, 
go  the  closing  bivalves,  and  they  are  all  snug  as  an 
oyster  again.  Some  persons  are  clams.  It  is  only 
in  the  shady  places  of  picnics  that  you  really  see 
and  hear  them  at  all.  Only  there  can  it  be  said  of  one 
of  them,  clamavit. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  "NORTH  WOODS1'  MEETING-HOUSE. 

I  SEE  the  church, — "meeting-house"  then, —  in 
the  village  of  Lowville,  as  it  stands  on  the  edge 
of  my  life's  eastern  horizon.  It  was  humble  as  a  barn, 
but  hallowed  as  an  altar.  The  pulpit,  with  the  archi 
tecture  of  a  grain-bin  and  two  stories  high, —  they 
kept  the  fuel  in  the  lower  one, —  was  about  big  enough 
for  the  twelve  disciples  to  meet  in.  A  broad  ledge 
ran  all  around  it,  whereon  the  Bible  and  the  hymn- 
book  had  place.  Not  an  inch  of  carpet  or  velvet  or 
cushion  anywhere  about  it,  if  we  except  a  little  cush 
ion  of  green  cloth,  plump  with  the  plumage  of  geese, 
and  looking  like  a  young  feather-bed  not  quite  ripe. 
It  was  as  guiltless  of  upholstery  as  Hainan's  gallows. 
For  a  time  the  Sunday-school  library  was  piled  in  one 
corner.  The  entrance  to  it  was  by  a  little  closed 
stairway.  The  minister  went  in  and  up  and  was  out 
of  sight,  for  whoever  sat  down  in  that  pulpit  was  in 
visible  till  he  stood  up.  A  bench  of  unpainted  wood 
was  fastened  along  the  wall  for  the  minister  and  his 
"  visiting  brethren."  And  what  a  shining  host  at  one 
time  and  another  have  I  seen  there!  —  Kendrick, 

Peck,  Bennett,   Card,   Cook,   Cornell,   Galusha,    Smit- 

112 


THE    "NORTH    WOODS "    MEETING-HOUSE.  113 

zer,  Moore,  Morgan,  Hascall,  Comstock,  Elliott.  They 
make  me  think  of  the  big  trees  of  California.  They 
were  few,  but  how  mighty  they  were !  A  formidable 
breastwork  had  that  pulpit,  and  fronting  it  like  a  bat 
tlement  was  the  gallery  where  stood  and  sang  the 
choir. 

My  father  led  the  choir.  I  can  see  the  wooden 
pitch-pipe,  with  a  mouth  like  a  whip-poor-will, —  I 
saw  it  a  few  months  ago,  blackened  with  age,  and 
treasured  for  the  lips  that  have  touched  it, —  as  he 
adjusted  it  to  some  letter  where  "mi  is  in  E,"  or 
some  other  member  of  the  musical  alphabet,  and  blew 
a  slender  note  that  had  a  plaintive  cry  something  like 
a  plover's,  and  they  all  "pitched  in"  and  sang  one  of 
the  golden  songs  of  day  before  yesterday,  while  Sister 
Green  rose  and  fell  with  the  notes  as  she  stood,  like 
a  boat  at  its  moorings  lifted  by  the  tide.  There  was 
a  girl  in  that  choir  from  the  "Number  Three"  road 
that  always  matched  her  eyes  with  her  ribbons,  and 
the  ribbons  were  always  blue.  She  seemed  to  me 
about  the  sweetest  singer  in  all  Israel.  Where  are 
the  eyes  and  the  tones  to-day?  I  fear  me  those  have 
grown  cloudy  and  these  sad  since  then.  Let  us  hope 
not. 

For  some  reason  well  known  to  my  father,  and  so 
I  never  mentioned  it  to  him,  a  place  was  assigned  me, 
during  the  services,  in  that  gallery,  and  within  easy 
reach  of  his  paternal  hand.  I  didn't  sing.  I  never 
could  sing.  When  I  do  sing,  I  depart  into  waste 

places.     Admiring    many   tunes,    I   was    never'  suffi- 

5* 


114  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

ciently  familiar  with  any  of  them  to  take  liberties 
and  call  them  by  name,  except  Yankee  Doodle,  Hail 
Columbia,  Ode  to  Science,  Bonaparte  Crossing  the 
Rhine, —  is  he  crossing  it  yet?  —  "and  such."  But  I 
knew  Mear  and  Old  Hundred  and  Heber's  Hymn, 
and  all  the  rest  of  them,  enough  to  love  them  when 
I  heard  them,  and  passing  sweet  did  they  sound  to 
me  then, —  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever. 

Just  behind  me  was  the  bass-viol,  played  upon  by 
a  Christian  man  whose  memory  is  yet  sweet, —  Me- 
lanctlion  Merrill,  of  the  "West  Road."  That  carnal 
instrument,  portly  and  florid,  was  not  admitted  into 
that  gallery  without  argument.  Some  of  the  silver- 
gray  brethren  and  sisters  would  have  had  no  objec 
tion  to  psaltery  and  harp,  and  even  tinkling  cymbals, 
for  were  they  not  all  Bible  instruments  wherewith  to 
make  "a  joyful  noise"  before  the  Lord?  —  but  that 
father  of  fiddles, —  well,  they  associated  it  with  the 
corn-pop  measures  of  Money  Musk,  and  the  total  de 
pravity  of  "  The  Devil  among  the  Tailors,"  and  the 
profane  rhyme  of  "  Old  Rosin  the  Bow,"  if  old  Rosin 
was  old  enough. 

As  I  remember  it,  Elder  Blodgett  read  psalms  and 
hymns  as  we  are  commanded  to  sing  them, — "with 
the  spirit  and  the  understanding," — read  them  as  if 
they  were  something  he  loved  and  believed  in,  and 
wanted  everybody  else  to  do  likewise.  You  have 
heard  some  terrific  reading.  So  have  I.  Witness  the 
man  whom  I  heard  "give  out"  the  hymn,  and  you 
may  judge  how  he  read  it  by  what  he  said  about  it : 


MEETING-HOUSE.  115 

"Sing  the  two  fust  vusses  and  the  three  last,"  as  if 
the  hymn  were  a  hay-fork  at  one  end  and  a  trident 
at  the  other.  Perhaps  the  order  of  importance  in  the 
clergyman's  mind  should  be,  first  the  text ;  second 
the  prayer;  third  the  praise;  last  the  sermon.  Make 
this  universal,  and  there  will  be  less  hustling  through 
the  hymn,  as  a  brisk  fellow  wipes  his  feet  on  a  husk 
door-mat. 

In  those  old  days  I  think  there  were  none  in  the 
choir  but  "  professors."  But  in  the  Presbyterian  stone 
church  up  the  street, —  the  Baptist  edifice  was  noth 
ing  but  wood, —  you  could  not  quite  distinguish  the 
saints  from  the  singers  in  the  choir,  because  they  had 
all  been  sprinkled  into  salvation  in  the  genesis  of 
things, — "  in  the  beginning."  But  I  fancy  they  should 
have  let  the  sinners  sing.  It  might  have  been  good 
for  them.  Praise  is  next  to  prayer. 

By  the  way :  do  you  know  any  civilized  places 
where  they  have  sacrilegiously  degraded  "  Ninety-and- 
Nine,"  "Hold  the  Fort,"  and  "Jesus  of  Nazareth 
Passeth  By,"  to  dancing-tunes  under  the  thin  title  of 
waltzes?  I  do.  To  steal  a  communion  service  for  the 
purposes  of  a  drinking  bout  would  be  a  companion 
picture. 

The  beauty  of  that  old  meeting-house  was  invisible 
to  the  natural  eye.  It  had  none  at  all.  It  was  as 
angular  as  an  elbow,  and  as  square  as  a  checker-board. 
Its  frescoes  are  all  memories.  The  grace  of  its  pews 
was  lent  by  them  who  sat  therein.  Under  the  brow 
of  the  mighty  pulpit  sat  Deacon  Bachelder  and  Dea- 


116  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

con  Moses  Waters.  One  was  a  fine  specimen  of  a 
lean  deacon,  and  the  other  as  rotund  as  one  of  his 
own  Pound  Sweetings,  for  he  was  the  man  who 
gave  me  Rhode  Island  Greenings  out  of  his  Sunday- 
noon  lunch,  wrapped  in  a  clean  red  bandana  handker 
chief.  I  see  the  men  and  women  and  slips  of  girls 
and  boys,  a  goodly  company,  in  the  garments  of  forty 
years  ago.  I  see  green  calashes  and  Vandykes  and 
hats  of  beaver,  and  cloaks  with  overlapping  capes  like 
scales  upon  a  speckled  trout,  and  gowns  with  balloons 
of  sleeves,  and  high  waists  and  skirts  hanging  like 
flags  in  calms,  and  low  morocco  shoes  with  glint  of 
buckles,  and  caps  with  borders  like  white  moonbeams 
frilled.  I  see  the  long  tune-books  fluttering  along 
the  top  of  the  gallery  as  they  opened  them  to  the 
tune.  I  hear  footstoves  tinkling  down  the  aisle  in 
winter,  each  swung  in  a  black-gloved  hand  by  its  little 
bail.  I  smell  caraway  and  roses  and  dill  in  the  sum 
mer.  I  smell  crape  both  summer  and  winter,  for  alas ! 
Death  "hath  all  seasons  for  his  own."  I  hear  voices 
that  have  died  forever  out  of  a  voiceful  world.  I  hear 
the  simple,  fervent,  childlike  petition  of  Elder  Blod- 
gett.  I  see  the  dusty  slants  of  the  afternoon  sunshine 
sloping  down  through  the  western  windows.  I  hear 
them  sing 

Praise  God  from  whom  all  blessings  flow; 
Praise  Him  all  creatures  here  below; 
Praise  Him  above,  angelic  host; 
Praise  Father,  Son  and  Holy  Ghost! 


117 

As  the  congregation  rises,  I  hear  the  rustling  of 
garments  like  a  breath  of  wind  in  a  leafy  wood.  I 
hear  the  Elder  with  outspread  hands  pronounce  the 
benediction  :  "  Now  may  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ  be  with  you  all  forevermore,  AMEN  ! "  And 
so  that  goodly  congregation  pass  slowly  out  with  hand 
clasps  as  they  leave  the  doors.  They  have  almost  all 
gone  out  of  life.  The  dear  voices  in  the  gallery  are 
quite  all  hushed.  Dust  upon  lips,  dust  upon  brows, — 
everywhere  dust ! 

And  the  gentle,  faithful  shepherd  of  the  old-time 
flock  has  departed.  "  The  prayers  of  David,  the  son 
of  Jesse,  are  ended  !  " 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

WINKS  AND  WINKERS. 

I  LOVE  an  even  winker,  where  the  fringed  lids  come 
down  like  little  sleeps,  and  then  lift  regularly  off. 
Not  lazily,  but  firmly,  if  it  may  be  said  of  a  thing 
so  delicate  as  a  live  window-curtain.  It  betokens  the 
staid  and  quiet  temperament  of  a  man  not  easily 
moved,  but  when  moved,  strong.  Distrust  a  man's 
nerve  who,  when  thwarted  or  opposed,  gives  long 
shivering  winks  with  both  eyes,  like  an  ox  threat 
ened  over  the  head  with  a  goad.  The  woman  who 
snaps  her  eye-lashes  as  if  they  were  whips  will  never 
'  be  successfully  likened  to  "  Patience  on  a  monument.  " 
Boys  sometimes  call  them  "  eye-lashers,"  and  that 
names  hers  precisely. 

My  neighbor  across  the  way  has  a  single  wink  if 
he  is  pleased  at  what  you  say,  or  pleased  at  what  he 
says.  If  he  utters  a  smart  thing,  wink  goes  that  eye 
as  if  he  had  fired  off  his  joke  with  it,  and  you  hap 
pened  to  see  the  flash.  But  it  is  always  the  right 
eye.  I  have  just  been  trying  it  with  the  left  eye, 
but  it  isn't  so  handy.  The  lid  does  not  shut  down 
so  much  like  a  percussion  lock,  nor  fly  open  so  easily. 
People  are  right-eyed  as  well  as  right-handed.  We 

118 


WINKS   AND   WINKERS.  119 

are  conscious  that  when  we  want  to  bore  a  hole  in 
an  obscure  sentence,  so  as  to  see  through  it,  the  right 
eye  is  the  tool  we  do  it  with. 

"When  some  people  are  trying  to  remember  a  thing, 
they  give  five  or  six  winks  as  fast  as  possible,  as  if 
they  would  thus  fan  the  smouldering  recollections  into 
a  blaze,  and  then  they  intermit.  They  are  fluttering 
winkers. 

The  locomotive,  like  the  Cyclops,  has  but  one  head 
light,  and  I  am  glad  of  it.  Just  fancy  an  engine 
with  two  round  O's  of  eyes  side  by  side,  glaring 
through  the  night,  arid  trailing  its  jointed  body,  sin 
uous  as  a  sea-serpent,  with  its  shining  square  scales,  and 
something  like  a  glittering  fin  lying  along  the  back ! 
It  would  frighten  civilization  out  of  sight.  When  a 
man  has  two  right  eyes,  and  I  mistrust  very  few  have, 
he  is  about  as  well  equipped  as  an  observatory.  He 
is  a  telescope  of  himself.  One  of  the  most  popular 
speakers  in  the  State,  and  one  of  the  wittiest  withal, 
used  to  lower  his  right  eyelid  when  he  drove  an  ar 
gumentative  nail  home,  and  clinched  it  with  a  ham 
mer-headed  story.  The  laugh  in  that  eye  set  off  the 
audience  like  a  spark  of  fire  in  a  bag  of  gunpowder. 
The  left  eye  seemed  to  be  left  out  of  the  transaction 
entirely.  I  am  afraid  my  neighbor  of  the  single 
wink  is  not  as  noble  as  a  Roman.  That  one  wink 
shuts  the  cover  down  upon  all  hope  of  his  nobility, 
and  smothers  it,  but  a  woman  with  that  lonely  wink 
is  —  well,  whatever  she  is,  she  is  not  a  lady. 

It  is  wonderful  how  much  you  can  find  out  about 


120  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

a  man  by  watching  the  way  he  uses  his  handy  eye 
lid.  When  he  employs  it  to  hint  with,  there  is  a 
trace  of  fox  in  him.  Contemplate  George  Washing 
ton's  square  block  of  a  face,  and  fancy  his  right  eye 
giving  a  cunning  wink !  It  would  extinguish  your 
respect,  besides  half  frightening  you  to  death.  Vol 
untary  winkers  are  not  troubled  with  courage.  A 
flap  of  the  lid  is  stealthier  and  safer  than  a  swing  of 
the  tongue.  There  is  a  proverb,  a  little  coarse  and 
very  old,  about  a  wink  being  as  good  as  a  kick.  It 
is  better,  for  it  is  possible  to  commit  assault  and  bat 
tery  with  an  eyelid.  It  is  cheaper  ruffianism  than  a 
fist,  and  there  is  no  law  against  it.  It  is  the  mean 
est  weapon  a  man  can  carry,  and  calls  for  legislation. 


CHAPTEK  XY. 

HUMAN  FIGS. 

THE  people  who  have  reared  large  families  of  chil 
dren  without  any  boys  and  gMs  among  them  are 
unfortunate.  There  are  such  people.  A  child  with 
out  any  childhood  is  a  miserable  little  animal,  and 
the  poorest  compliment  that  can  be  paid  to  a  boy  — 
if  it  is  a  true  one  —  is  that  he  is  "a  little  man."  I 
have  read  somewhere  —  perhaps  it  is  a  mistake  —  that 
a  fig  makes  its  appearance  upon  the  tree  a  fig,  suf 
fering  no  progressive  changes  except  to  grow  bigger. 
Once  a  fig,  always  a  fig.  I  do  not  think  we  want 
any  more  human  figs.  First  the  baby,  then  the  breezy 
boy,  then  the  boots,  then  the  bother,  then  the  young 
man,  then  the  hope  of  the  homestead  —  that  is  the 
good  old-fashioned  order  of  development.  Not  hav 
ing  the  delight  of  sitting  under  my  "  own  vine  and 
fig-tree,"  perhaps  my  knowledge  of  figs  is  imperfect, 
but  yet  I  insist  upon  the  boy.  We  do  not  want  him 
wise  and  profound  arid  owl-like  and  right- angle-tri- 
angled.  What  becomes  of  the  precocious  children 
seven  or  eight  years  older  at  their  heads  than  they 
are  at  their  heels?  Once  in  a  hundred  times  do  they 
G  121 


122  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

turn  into  anything  at  all  —  say  into  men?  Call  the 
roll  and  see. 

The  writer  knew  a  boy  who  never  learned  to  swim 
because  the  water  will  drown, —  never  learned  to  ride 
a  horse  because  horses  run  away, —  never  touched  a 
gun  because  powder  explodes, —  never  played  with  the 
boys  because  he  would  tear  his  clothes, —  never  got 
farther  than  "  barn-ball,"  which  means  throwing  a 
ball  at  the  gable  and  catching  it  when  it  returns. 
He  played  that  —  and  they  let  him  —  because  he  could 
play  it  alone.  In  fact,  in  pretty  nearly  all  his  plays 
he  had  a  "lone  hand." 

Then  there  were  several  "  becauses,"  that  wTere 
never  explained.  He  never  wrent  to  children's  par 
ties,  because .  He  never  went  sleigh-riding  with 

the  girls,  because .  He  never  learned  to  skate, 

because—  — .  Somebody  exclaims,  What  did  the  fel 
low  know  ?  Was  he  an  idiot  ?  By  no  means.  He 
could  fulminate  Pitt's  reply  to  somebody  about  "  the 
atrocious  crime  of  being  a  young  man,"  and  repeat 
"  Campbell's  Pleasures  of  Hope,"  and  "  My  name  is 
Norval."  He  knew  some  Latin  and  some  Greek,  and 
a  little  about  Jupiter  and  the  Styx  ;  but  the  sticks 
he  knew  most  about  were  sticks  of  stove-wrood  that 
he  piled  in  the  wood-house  on  Saturday  afternoons, 
when  other  boys  were  kicking  up  their  heels  in  a 
frolic.  Not  that  he  was  ever  overworked.  By  no 
means.  He  had  the  kindest  father  and  the  most  lov 
ing  mother  in  all  Christendom,  but  then  he  was  to 
be  a  little  fig.  Boy  nature  cropped  out,  and  he  fell 


HUMAN   FIGS.  123 

in  love  with  a  girl.  Of  course,  like  Desdemona's 
handkerchief,  he  was  "  too  little  "  for  any  such  non 
sense,  and  so  an  extinguisher  night-cap  was  put  upon 
the  flicker-  of  flame,  and  out  it  went ! 

Now  this  boy,  as  I  have  heard,  was  not  an  unhappy 
boy.  He  had  a  blessed  childhood,  but  the  trouble 
was,  he  peopled  that  childhood  with  things  of  his 
own  creation.  He  dreamed  in  the  daytime.  He  grew 
sensitive,  timid,  shy.  He  was  not  like  the  kind  of 
turtle  whose  voice  u  is  heard  in  the  land,"  but  the 
other  sort,  that  draws  its  head  into  its  shell  and  never 
says  a  word.  He  fell  in  love  again,  with  a  woman 
old  enough  to  be  his  —  aunt,  and  who  thought  no 
more  about  him  than  she  would  think  of  a  tree-frog. 
He  fell  in  love  with  —  it  sounds  incredible,  and  is 
absurd,  but  it  is  true  —  with  her  black  stockings ! 
That  color,  of  all  others,  in  or  out  of  the  solar  spec 
trum  !  He  was  fond  of  reading  encyclopaedias.  He 
read  Nicholson's  old  twelve-volume  fellow  by  the 
month.  He  happened  upon  the  article  "  consump 
tion,"  and  he  had  the  symptoms.  "  The  liver  com 
plaint,"  and  that  too.  The  article  on  "  the  heart " 
fairly  scared  him.  His  own  turned  over  and  bounded 
about  after  an  unruly  fashion,  and  he  was  sure  he 
had  heart-disease.  In  fact,  he  was  a  chameleon,  and 
took  the  color  of  the  thing  he  alighted  upon.  He 
had  everything  that  he  read  human  beings  could 
have,  except,  perhaps,  a  young  family. 

The  dark  was  as  populous  as  London.  The  dis 
tant  woods  he  longed  to  wander  in,  and  never  could, 


124  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

were  tilled  as  full  of  fancies  of  his  own  make  as  a 
sunbeam  is  of  midges.  If  he  had  possessed  tops, 
whips,  trumpets,  dogs,  birds,  squirrels  —  it  is  imma 
terial  what,  if  only  they  were  material  —  he  would 
have  had  something  more  wholesome  to  play  with 
than  idle  fancies  and  vain  imaginings.  A  stray  dog 
followed  that  boy  home  one  day  —  not,  perhaps,  with 
out  certain  sly  and  friendly  snaps  of  the  thumb  and 
finger,  for  the  lad  had  never  learned  to  whistle  —  a 
small  colored  cur,  that  carried  his  tail  to  one  side 
like  a  helm  -put  to  starboard.  He  smuggled  him  into 
the  wood-house,  and  hid  him  and  fed  him,  and  man 
aged  to  keep  him  out  of  sight,  and  the  boy's  mother 
aided  and  abetted,  and  the  dog  helped  him  to  re 
cover  from  consumption  and  liver-complaint  and  black 
stockings  —  and  was  running  down  his  morbid  fancies 
and  shaking  them  to  pieces  as  if  they  were  chip 
mucks,  when,  one  unlucky  day,  that  dog  impudently 
barked  at  the  boy's  father !  The  father  exclaimed 
against  the  strange  dog,  instituted  an  investigation, 
condemned  the  boy  and  banished  the  dog,  and  the 
fancies  returned  and  the  unhealthy  longings,  and  the 
evil  symptoms  out  of  the  encyclopaedia.  I  have  heard 
him  say  that,  a  quarter  of  a  century  afterward,  he 
often  caught  himself  stopping  in  the  street  to  stare 
after  some  little  dingy  cur  with  a  particularly  short 
trot,  and  that  carried  his  tail  to  starboard,  and  think 
of  poor  "  Watch,"  who,  he  hopes,  has  gone  with 
Pope's  Indian  dog  to  some  "  equal  sky."  Dogs  are 
good  for  boys,  and  so  are  robins  and  rabbits. 


HUMAN    FIGS.  125 

THE    USE    OF    USELESSNESS. 

A  healthful  pet  for  a  boy,  to  be  perfectly  satisfac 
tory,  must  be  worthless  financially,  useless  practically, 
and  troublesome  generally.  Indeed,  it  must  be  a  great 
deal  like  the  boy  himself.  Your  average  youngster 
cannot  be  brought  to  consider  a  cow  a  pet,  particu 
larly  if  he  has  to  be  a  calf  by  brevet,  and  do  the 
housekeeping  for  the  cow.  Likewise  a  pig.  A  fan- 
tailed  pigeon  is  more  to  him  than  a  coopful  of  the 
most  industrious  laying  hens  that  ever  proclaimed  an 
egg.  Unless  he  is  Poor  Richard's  Boy ! 

As  we  go  along  in  life  many  of  us  forget  some 
thing  that  is  well  worth  retaining,  and  one  of  the 
most  difficult  tilings  for  a  man  to  remember  is  this 
one  fact  he  knew  all  about  when  he  was  a  boy,  viz : 
certain  things  may  be  very  useful  because  they  are 
utterly  useless  —  financially.  The  young  robin  that 
opens  a  mouth  with  a  nankeen  lining  to  its  boy  god 
father  for  the  vulgar  fraction  of  angle-worm  he  holds 
in  thumb  and  finger;  the  pansies  that  make  quaint 
faces  at  you  from  the  garden  border ;  the  shingle 
rooster  in  a  macaw's  jacket  that  the  lad  has  fashioned 
with  his  knife,  taking  little  slices  from  his  fingers 
now  and  then,  and  with  infinite  clambering  and 
climbing,  and  loss  of  buttons  and  a  rent  in  his  panta 
loons  like  that  in  great  Caesar's  mantle,  and  peril  to 
neck  and  limb,  has  fastened  triumphantly  upon  the 
highest  peak  of  the  barn ;  the  clipper  mill  on  the 
top  of  the  wood-shed  that  runs  at  the  wind's  will, 
and  faces  about  to  catch  it  like  a  distracted  devil's- 


126  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

darning-needle,  and  grinds  no  grists  and  makes  an 
idle  clatter;  —  all  these  and  such  as  these  are  valu 
able  because  they  have  no  value  at  all. 

Distrust  the  man  who  goes  about  with  an  icono 
clastic  hammer  at  a  random  swing.  It  is  a  sort  of 
"skilled  labor"  that  requires  no  apprenticeship,  and 
not  much  of  any  brains.  But,  for  all  that,  I  should 
like  one  clip  at  the  almanac  of  the  immortal  tallow- 
chandler  and  kite-flier,  "Benjamin  Franklin,  printer." 
Had  he  said  a  little  less  about  silver  change  in  that 
almanac,  and  a  little  more  about  lunar  change,  it 
might  have  been  as  well.  "A  pin  a  day  a  groat  a 
year"  is  true,  as  pins  went  and  groats  were  counted, 
but  we  do  not  want  to  hear  it  all  the  time.  If  in 
dustry  is  really  a  virtue,  then  the  sluggard's  school- 
ma'am  must  be  about  the  most  virtuous  individual 
in  the  world.  Industry  is  a  wholesome  and  blessed 
necessity.  Like  hunger,  it  is  a  piquant  sauce  to  our 
enjoyments.  Of  the  three  men,  he  who  need  do 
nothing,  he  who  wishes  to  do  nothing,  he  who  has 
nothing,  the  last  is  by  far  the  happiest.  About  three 
people  since  Adam's  time,  whose  name  was  good  for 
much  on  a  note  of  hand,  have  made  a  raid  upon 
riches,  and  nobody  has  praised  poverty  so  heartily  as 
he  who  wrote  his  eulogy  upon  a  table  of  gold  that 
he  had  paid  for  and  was  able  to  keep.  But  do  not 
let  us  cover  the  world  with  a  penny,  as  they  hide 
the  full  moon  with  a  nickel.  A  sordid  boy,  to  whom 
nothing  is  of  value  that  he  cannot  turn  into  money, 
is  of  all  boys  the  most  pitiful. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

"THE  HILL  OF  SCIENCE." 

WEBSTER'S  Spelling-Book  is  the  only  Amer 
ican  classic.  Give  way,  ye  legions  of  poets 
and  scholars,  before  the  little  books  that,  thick  as 
locusts,  swarmed  and  settled  upon  the  whole  land ! 
Webster  is  to  America  what  Burns  is  to  Scotland, — 
everybody  knows  a  bit  of  him.  You  may  quote  Bry 
ant  at  live  hundred  thousand  intelligent  men,  and  not 
a  wink  of  recognition.  You  may  name  Homer  to 
another  five  hundred  thousand,  and  no  more  kindling 
interest  in  the  eyes  of  a  man  of  them  than  there  is 
in  a  couple  of  bone  buttons. 

But  tryHhem  with  the  old  Spelling-Book,  battered 
and  tattered.  Recall  the  skirmish  line  led  off  by 
"  Baker,  Briar,  Cider,"  that  widened  and  lengthened 
into  marching  columns,  and  moved  in  a  stately  way 
through  the  book  like  a  triumphant  army.  Bring 
out  a  fable  or  two  from  the  commissary  department 
that  brought  up  the  rear  of  that  polysyllabic  host. 
Mention  the  dreamy  girl  with  the  milking-pail,  to 
whose  complexion  "  green  "  was  as  suited  as  the  green 
husk  jacket  is  to  the  young  corn,  "and  green  it  shall 
be!"  Do  any  of  these  things,  and  about  a  million 

127 


128  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

will  brighten  and  smile,  and  help  von  out  with  your 
reminiscences,  and  have  a  warmer  feeling  in  their 
hearts  for  you  than  if  you  had  shied  at  them  the 
Book  of  Song,  or  Fronde's  History  of  England,  or 
Abbott's  Napoleon,  or  any  other  work  of  poetry  or 
fiction. 

But  why  the  spell  of  the  Spelling-Book  among  the 
hills?  Before  me  is  a  horizon  knobbed  like  an  old- 
time  vault-door.  Dark  and  strong  and  grim  as  a 
prison,  it  is  thirty  miles  away,  and  every  knob  is  a 
Herkimer  hill.  Behind  me  is  a  swell  of  ambitious 
earth  that  was  always  there.  I  love  it  for  its  con 
stancy,  and  fancy  it  resembles  the  first  pictured  hill 
that  you  and  I  ever  saw.  It  embellished  that  Spell 
ing-Book,  and  was  called 


That  frontispiece  is  as  unforgetable  as  the  mother 
that  bore  you.  I  am  disposed  to  think  the  rocky, 
wooded  billow  behind  me  is  the  original.  To  be  sure 
it  has  no  temple  upon  its  summit,  with  Corinthian 
columns;  and  no  long-haired  youth  in  a  nightgown  at 
its  base,  looking  up  at  the  risk  of  breaking  his  neck ; 
and  no  attenuated  angel  pointing  the  ambitious  young 
ster  to  the  radiant  steep,  but  then  the  hill  is  here  in  its 
rugged  magnitude.  The  boy  is  a  man,  the  temple  a 
ruin,  and  the  angel  fled.  Was  it  good  Dr.  Beattie  who 
wrote  those  lines  for  "us  boys"  to  speak,  that  we  de 
livered  in  the  round-abouts  with  two  rows  of  brass 
buttons  down  before? 


129 


"Ah,  who  can  tell  how  hard  it  is  to  climb 
The  steep  where  Fame's  proud  temple  shines  afar? 
Ah,  who  can  tell  how  many  a  soul  sublime 
Has  felt  the  influence  of  malignant  star 
And  waged  with  fortune  an  eternal  war?  " 

Birt  then  that  was  not  precisely  the  way  we  said  it, 
but  in  this  wise: 

Ah,  u'hokn  tell  howard  it  'tis  t'  climb 

The  stee  pwhere  Fame  sproud  tempul  shines  effar; 

and  then  the  rest  of  the  syllables  tumbled  over  each 
other  like  a  flock  of  frightened  sheep  over  a  stone  wall. 
And  how  dreadful  it  all  was  about  the  "soul  sublime" 
and  the  "malignant  star"  and  the  "eternal  waw"  as 
we  rendered  it,  and  nobody  to  say,  "  Let  us  have 
peace ! "  But  the  best  of  it  was  that  not  a  biped  of 
us  knew  what  it  all  meant. 


Those  were  the  days  when  we  uttered  morsels  of 
Demosthenes  and  the  frisky  Dr.  Young  and  the  play 
ful  Blair's  Sermons,  and  the  Devil, —  John  Milton's, 
—  and  other  merry  old  boys.  Do  you  remember  the 
Belshazzar  quake  you  had,  when  called  out  to — make  a 
fool  of  yourself  and  the  man  you  misrepresented?  How 
you  kept  swallowing  with  nothing  to  eat,  as  if  the 
"piece"  you  were  rendering  came  from  your  stomach, 
and  you  were  doing  your  best  to  keep  it  down?  Get 
out  of  yourself  and  look  at  yourself  as  you  stood  there, 
working  with  both  thumbs  and  forefingers  at  the  two 
outside  seams  of  your  pantaloons ;  and  casting  scared 
glances  at  the  girls,  as  if  they  were  hungry  ogres  and 


130  SUMMER- SAVORY. 

you  a  tender  titbit;  and  hearing  something  under  the 
left  side  of  your  jacket  thud,  thicd,  like  the  old-fash 
ioned  "pounder"  on  blue  Mondays;  and  snapping 
your  little  bow, —  o  as  in  cow, —  at  the  school,  and 
going  to  your  seat  as  limp  as  a  wet  handkerchief. 
And  so  America  is  filled  with  orators  "even  until  this 
day." 

ELOCUTIONARY    COMPETITION. 

Writing  of  speaking:  was  it  ever  your  blessed  lot 
to  give  an  address  at  an  agricultural  fair,  or  to  make 
a  speech  at  a  poultry  show?  The  writer  being  a  prac 
tical  farmer  who  makes  " bouts"  upon  foolscap  with 
steel-pen  plows,  was  unfortunately  invited  to  address 
the  farmers.  But  no  sooner  had  he  begun  to  say 
something  sweet  and  green  about  rural  life  and  glo 
rify  the  farmer,  and  mention  "the  sage  of  Monticello," 
—  meaning  Thomas  Jefferson, —  which  a  good  old 
lady,  after  the  address,  said  she  should  like  to  get  a 
root  of,  if  it  was  any  better  than  the  old  kind  that 
grew  in  her  "garding," — "the  sage  of  Monticello"  as 
being  a  farmer;  and  gone  on  and  introduced  a  plow 
man  by  the  name  of  Cincinnatus,  who  had  been  dead 
so  long  that  not  a  soul  there  present  knew  he  had  ever 
been  born, —  no  sooner  had  all  this  been  done,  than 
an  exaggerated  rooster,  several  feet  high  in  his  claws, 
took  it  into  his  head  to  crow  and  flap  his  wings  like 
a  couple  of  mainsails;  and  somebody  bigger  and 
hoarser  answered  him,  and  that  set  off  the  turkeys 
and  roused  the  geese  and  rallied  the  ducks.  Then 
there  would  be  a  lull,  arid  the  unhappy  speaker  would 


"THE    HILL    OF    SCIENCE."  131 

proceed  to  give  some  lively  statistics  from  the  latest 
Report  of  the  Patent  Office,  and  be  just  adorning 
them,  even  as  little  Chester  Whites  are  tricked  out 
with  ringlets  of  tails,  with  pleasant  allusions  to  the 
formers'  blooming  daughters  there  present,  when  a 
perverse  Bantam,  a  dozen  ounces  of  fowl  depravity, 
would  set  up  an  incisive  crow  of  defiance  as  sharp  as 
a  needle,  and  all  the  feathered  Babel  take  up  the 
challenge,  until  gobble,  cackle,  crow,  quack  and  bloom 
ing  daughters  were  inextricably  mingled.  The  girls 
were  fairly  fed  out  to  the  poultry. 

The  speaker's  appeal  to  the  young  men  to  stay  in 
the  country  and  keep  up  the  fences  was  seconded  by 
some  malicious  beast  of  Bashan  in  an  adjoining  stall 
who  exploded  all  the  vowels  like  a  professor  of  elo 
cution,  and  certain  plaintive  nasal  Cotswolds  went 
through  their  0,  6,  abs  in  concert.  But  when  a  touch 
ing  and  entirely  new  apostrophe  to  the  farmer's  house, 
as  being  the  one  place  on  all  the  broad  acres  where 
the  most  precious  stock  was  reared, —  the  boys  and 
girls  of  the  homestead, —  and  the  crowd  was  just 
ready  to  cheer,  a,  creature,  with  ear  enough  to  equip 
a  small  audience  with  that  organ,  that  had  been 
watching  the  speaker  from  a  shed  near  by,  set  up  his 
hideous,  sardonic  laugh  of  two  syllables  united  by  a 
rusty  hinge  with  a  creak  to  it,  and  threw  the  audience 
into  convulsions  and  covered  the  orator  with  confu 
sion.  It  was  one  too  many  at  once;  the  biped  retired, 
the  band  played,  and  the  base-drum  drowned  out  the 
quadruped. 


132  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

I  called  on  the  execrable  Bantam  in  his  coop;  the 
creature  that  set  the  feathered  tribe  cackling  through 
my  sentences,  and  he  was  but  little  bigger  than  a 
stout  robin.  Anybody,  no  matter  how  diminutive,  or 
how  small  the  type  you  set  him  in,  can  raise  a  dis 
turbance  that  nobody  can  quiet.  It  must  just  die 
out  by  the  law  of  limitation. 

SQUARE    STEPPERS. 

Two-footed  or  four-footed,  everybody  likes  a  square 
stepper.  Job's  horse  was  one  of  them.  The  Vermont 
Morgan  is  another.  I  had  a  chat  with  a  wilderness 
pioneer  to-day,  who  is  never  so  much  at  home  as  when 
he  is  abroad.  He  has  camped  out  so  much  with  his 
feet  to  the  fire  that  he  smells  smoky.  It  wrould  do 
you  good  to  see  him  wralk.  Lightly,  firmly,  squarely, 
just  as  much  purpose  in  one  foot  as  there  is  in  the 
other.  His  tracks  in  the  damp  sand  are  as  even  as 
fine  press-work.  He  has  his  philosophy  of  "  being 
lost."  When  a  man  is  certain  whither  he  is  bound, 
he  throws  out  his  left  foot  as  assuredly  as  he  does 
his  right, —  the  regular  militia  drill,  "hay -foot,  straw- 
foot";  but  wrhen  there  is  a  kink  in  his  brain,  the  left- 
foot,  burdened  with  a  doubt  as  well  as  a  boot,  takes  a 
little  shorter  step  than  the  right,  and  so,  in  his  bewil 
derment,  he  describes  a  curve  to  the  left,  and  keeps 
coming  about  to  the  place  of  beginning.  He  ceases 
to  be  a  square  stepper. 

The  feeling  known  as  being  "turned  round"  is 
more  painful  than  a  pain  ;  when  the  sun  persists  in 


133 

rising  in  the  north  and  setting  in  the  south,  and  the 
engine  of  the  visible  universe  is  reversed.  No  reason 
ing  will  set  a  man  right  and  mend  his  broken  com 
pass;  but  if  he  will  just  return  to  the  place  where 
the  cardinal  points  are  in  position,  and  then  carry 
the  reckoning  in  his  head  back  to  the  doubtful  re 
gion,  the  horizon  will  swing  around  where  it  belongs, 
and  the  man  and  the  world  will  be  as  nicely  adjusted 
as  ever. 

There  is  a  world  of  left-leg  marching  in  church 
and  state.  It  has  traced  the  haunts  of  men  with 
crooked  paths,  and  impeded  true  progress.  Dr.  Kin- 
caid,  the  great  missionary,  was  a  square  stepper.  He 
struck  out  upon  an  unknown  and  rugged  route  as  if 
it  had  been  the  highway  of  nations.  It  was  no  left- 
foot  gait  that  took  him  within  ear-shot  and  heart- 
reach  of  the  Kin«:  of  Ava.  He  made  a  march  of  an 

O 

hundred  years  in  as  many  days.  It  was  a  grand  speci 
men  of  square  stepping.  Literally  and  figuratively, 
the  left  foot  wants  watching. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

THE  COUNTRY  "CORNERS." 

THE    BLACKSMITH. 

r  I  lIIERE  is  a  smithy  at  the  Corners.  All  day  long, 
JL  clear  and  cloudy,  I  hear  the  ring  of  hammer 
upon  anvil,  and  the  sullen  roar  of  the  fire.  Saunter 
ing  over,  I  enter  the  shop.  The  bellows  crouched 
beside  the  forge,  with  its  long  nose — a  family  nose  — 
thrust  in  the  ashes  out  of  sight.  Now  and  then  it 
lifts  its  back  as  if  about  to  get  up,  but  just  blowing 
a  long  breath  that  brightens  the  fire,  it  lies  down 
again.  There  are  cinders,  odds  and  ends  of  every 
thing  in  iron,  bits  of  steel,  horse-shoes,  and  a  water- 
trough  full  of  tongs. 

The  blacksmith  is  just  picking  up  a  lumbering- 
farm-horse's  foot  as  you  would  pick  up  a  penny,  and 
he  lays  it  in  his  leather  apron,  and  cuts  and  carves 
as  if  he  made  the  feet  to  fit  the  shoes.  Children  — 
his  children  —  seven  of  them,  are  playing  about,  and 
he  feeds  and  clothes  them  all  with  a  hammer.  It  is 
a  plain  case  of  hammer  and  tongs.  The  bit  of  ribbon 
catching  up  that  little  girl's  hair  came  out  of  the  fire, 
and  has  not  so  much  as  the  smell  of  smoke  upon  it. 
He  feeds  nine  mouths  with  a  mixture  of  nails,  rings, 
horse-shoes,  chains,  rods,  bars.  For  a  steady  diet,  iron 

134 


135 

and  steel  must  be  a  tremendous  tonic.  But  the  black 
smith  has  the  most  powerful  of  all  tonics  —  the  love 
of  wife  and  children  —  that  keeps  that  tired  arm 
swinging  and  that  fonre  glowing. 

o        c3  o         O  & 

Let  us  consolidate  the  nine  mouths  to  be  fed  with 
a  hammer.  Let  us  say  they  will  equal  one  mouth  a 
foot  and  four  inches  in  width  —  more  stupendous  in 
the  human  economy  than  the  mouth  of  the  Missis 
sippi.  Let  the  blacksmith  fashion  a  spoon  thirteen 
inches  broad  to  fit  it.  Twenty  mouthfnls  at  a  meal 
are  anchoritish  rations  for  growing  children.  Sixty 
times  a  day  that  mighty  spoon  must  travel  from  plate 
and  platter,  kettle  and  tureen,  every  ounce  of  it  won 
with  a  hammer  in  a  single  hand.  Everything  they 
want  and  wear  is  multiplied  by  the  magic  number, 
nine.  But  never  think  the  tired  blacksmith  would 
apply  the  arithmetical  rule  for  "  casting  out  the  nines," 
if  he  could.  Busy  and  happy  as  the  day  is  long,  he 
never  murders  time.  He  needs  no  drowsy  drugs  to 
sleep.  lie  drops  off  like  a  log  when  the  fire  is  out 
and  the  day  is  done.  He  falls  into  line  with  Tubal 
and  Jubal,  Elihu  Burritt,  Eobert  Collyer  and  "the 
lame  Lemriian,"  and  unlike  Vulcan,  he  is  not  nine 
days  distant  from  heaven,  when  he  is  busy  and  all 
are  well.  He  is  a  blacksmith. 

I  listen  to  his  hammer  as  to  a  pleasant  bell.     When 
I  think  what  it  rings  for  — "  Shoes  for  baby,"  "  Gown 
for  wife,"   "  Christmas  gifts   for  nine,   nine,   nine " 
the  clink,  clang,  clink,  grows  sweet  as  the  chimes  of 
old  Trinity  the  first  time  my  "  next  best  friend  "  and 


136       ,  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

I  heard  them.  It  was  a  calm,  clear  summer  morning. 
The  great  roar  of  the  mart  had  not  begun.  Then, 
as  we  walked  together  down  Broadway,  with  more 
years  before  us  than  there  are  to-day,  there  fell  down 
through  the  still  air,  as  if  from  another  world,  the 
sweet  chiming  of  the  bells  in  "  Life  let  us  cherish." 
It  is  the  very  tune  the  hammer  and  the  anvil  play ; 
and  so  from  belfry  to  blacksmith,  from  high  and  low, 
the  grateful  bells  and  pulses  beat — "  Life  let  us  cher 
ish  ! " 

Among  the  things  strown  about  the  blacksmith's 
shop  are  traps  for  such  "small  deer"  as  mink  and 
fox,  and  now  and  then  a  bear.  A  trap  is  a  pair  of 
jaws  and  teeth  waiting  to  catch  a  body.  The  French 
man  said  that  a  theory  is  a  trap  to  catch  a  truth.  It 
is  generally  the  inventor,  however,  that  is  trapped, 
and  not  the  truth.  Be  this  as  it  may,  here  are  traps, 
and  there  is  yet  need  of  them.  Bears  are  unbeara 
bly  many.  There  never  were  more  in  the  Canton  of 
Berne.  They  make  mutton  arid  pork  of  what  was 
neither  before,  within  a  stone's  throw  of  farm-houses. 
I  think  a  bear  has  a  comic  look,  so  fringed  and  ragged 
with  fur  everywhere,  as  if  he  were  made  coarse  on 
purpose  to  be  sold  cheap,  and  yet  with  ears  so  round, 
close-clipped  and  neat,  as  if  somebody  had  finished 
him  off  finer  at  one  end  than  the  other,  just  for  a 
joke,  and  then  laid  down  the  shears. 

The  two  Old  Testament  bears,  good  for  twenty 
children  apiece,  gave  me  in  very  early  life  a  whole 
some  respect  for  bald  heads  and  bears !  So  when,  in 


THE   COUNTRY    "CORNERS."  137 

broad  day,  one  of  these  dogs  of  Herod  came  down 
my  favorite  ravine  for  wandering,  and  crossed  the 
road,  the  bare  possibility  of  something  Bruin  has  since 
kept  me  out  from  among  the  shadows  and  evergreens 
of  the  gulf.  But  enough  of  Ursa,  Major  and  Minor, 
lest  the  bear  shall  be  a  bore. 

MY    FIRST    BIRDS. 

Here  now  am  I,  a  small  volume  of  very  modern 
history  indeed,  and  yet  I  point  you  to  that  rank  old 
meadow  across  the  road,  where  the  mower  can  make 
an  unobstructed  sweep,  with  nothing  in  the  way  but 
timothy  and  grasshoppers,  and  I  tell  you  that  when 
on  the  farther  edge  of  boyhood  I  remember  it  a  tan 
gled  swamp. 

Yillage-born,  I  was  caught  out  in  the  country  one 
soft  spring  evening,  and  passed  it.  The  fireflies'  twink 
ling  constellations  had  risen  above  it,  and  no  cloud 
of  forgetfulness  has  ever  dimmed  their  beauty.  Then 
out  of  the  swamp  came  strange,  sweet  sounds,  as  of 
many  filberts  of  sleigh-bells  afar  off,  when  the  wear 
ers  strike  into  a  merry  trot.  The  first  birds  I  re 
member  to  have  heard  sing  were  frogs !  Nothing  in 
all  the  music  of  childhood  and  manhood  ever  im 
pressed  me  as  did  the  trill  of  those  fellows  in  green 
tights,  and  to  this  day,  whenever  it  is  heard,  a  feel 
ing  of  loneliness  and  sadness,  yet  not  of  pain,  pos 
sesses  me,  and  beside  the  dead,  drawn  by  a  dead 
man's  horse,  in  a  dead  spring  night  of  "  the  long 
ago,"  a  boy  is  riding  to  a  home  now  desolate,  through 


138  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

the  gray  and  ghostly  shadows,  by  the  starry  glimmer 
of  fireflies,  to  the  unstrung  bells  of  frogs.  I  look  up, 
and  the  maple  is  glory  and  the  poplar  gold.  The 
sweeps  of  rain  loosen  the  frail  tenure  of  the  leaves, 
and  they  snow  slowly  down,  scarlet  and  crimson, 
gold  and  foliomort,  to  the  waiting  and  patient  and 
ever-ready  earth.  "  We  all  do  fade  as  a  leaf."  But 
then,  "  leaves  have  their  time  to  fall,"  but  "  thou 
hast  all  seasons  for  thine  own,  O  Death ! " 

THE    COUNTRY    STORE. 

Just  the  place  among  these  hills  for  the  old-time 
country  store  that,  like  Noah's  Ark,  contains  a  little 
of  all  sorts.  You  look  for  it  at  some  lazy  four-cor 
ners,  within  hearing  of  an  anvil's  ring,  and  the  grind 
of  a  mill  where  the  creek  plays  in  a  wheel  like  a 
caged  squirrel.  And  you  find  it,  the  variety  store 
of  a  hundred  years  ago,  where  needles  and  crowbars, 
goose-yokes  and  finger-rings,  liquorice-stick  and  leather, 
are  to  be  had  for  cash  or  "dicker."  In  the  corner 
yonder,  stands  the  spindle-legged  desk,  behind  a  breast 
work  of  barrels,  and  a  bastion  of  codfish  criss-crossed, 
a  big  blotter  spread  open  upon  the  lid,  goose-quill 
pens,  a  sand-box  and  a  pewter  inkstand  within  reach. 

Here  is  the  wooden  bench  beside  the  stove,  covered 
with  jack-knife  sculpture,  awkward  H's  like  a  pair 
of  leaning  bar-posts  with  one  bar,  and  B's  like  ox- 
yokes.  It  is  here  that  in  rainy  days  and  winter 
nights  the  whittlers,  smokers,  spitters  and  talkers  gather 
in  and  lay  their  blue-and-white  mittens  beneath  the 


THE   COUNTRY   "CORNERS."  139 

stove  to  dry;  perhaps  a  village  doctor  with  his  sad 
dle-bags  and  pink-and-senna  nimbus;  perhaps  a  coun 
try  lawyer  who  practices  at  the  county  bar  in  court 
time  and  the  tavern  bar  the  year  around,  with  his 
dogmatic  way  and  his  tobacco  atmosphere.  Here 
Unions  are  saved,  States  constructed,  stories  told,  and 
pig-tail  gnawed.  Here  "  fore-handed "  farmers  talk 
pig  and  potatoes,  and  buxom  country  girls  smell  of 
peppermint,  and  warm  their  rosy  fingers  that  match 
their  ripe  cheeks  for  color.  Here  clouds  of  smoke 
from  clay  pipes  float  up  among  the  bed-cords  and 
brooms  and  tin-lanterns  and  cowhide  boots  suspended 
overhead.  And  the  stove,  with  its  red  mouth  close 
to  the  hearth,  roars  and  reddens  in  the  howling  nights, 
and  the  black  nail-heads  in  the  floor  are  worn  silver- 
bright  by  stamping  and  uneasy  feet.  A  boy,  tipped 
with  red  as  to  fingers,  nose,  ears  and  toes,  stands  be 
fore  a  short  row  of  speckled  glass  jars  in  brimless 
hats  of  covers,  wherein  lean  a  few  streaked  sticks  of 
childish  happiness  at  a  penny  apiece,  and  gazes  with 
watering  mouth  that  keeps  him  swallowing  in  bliss 
ful  expectancy. 

THE    SCHOOL-HOUSE. 

Down  the  road,  beside  a  wild  spring,  is  a  stone 
school-house  with  deep  windows,  and  walls  like  a  cas 
tle.  It  is  as  bare  of  ornament  as  a  Quaker.  Neither 
map  nor  chart  hides  its  walls,  blank  as  the  face  of 
astonishment.  The  seats  are  a  sort  of  wooden  rheu 
matism —  right-angled,  hard  as  Jacob's  pillow  in  the 


140  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

wilderness,  and  no  angel  ever  in  sight  but  the  school- 
ma'am.  It  is  the  very  bones  of  the  modern  school- 
house.  Now  and  then  I  wander  there,  for  much  of 
the  time  it  is  as  empty  as  the  cave  of  Machpelah. 
But  there  is  something  human  about  it  that  recon 
ciles  me.  It  smells  of  old  geographies  and  spelling- 
books,  and  readers  with  ragged  edges  like  the  ears 
of  "the  under  dog"  in  the  fight.  There  is  a  faint 
suspicion  of  noontime  dinners  in  the  notched  and  let 
tered  desks.  There  are  pellets  of  chewed  paper  upon 
the  walls,  like  cannon-shot  in  some  old  fort.  There 
are  nightmare  faces  upon  the  seats,  and  beasts  that 
never  came  out  of  the  Ark,  for  they  could  by  no 
possibility  have  ever  got  in,  and  prints  of  obliterating 
thumbs  inkier  than  Ethiopia. 

But  the  limestone  fortress  has  other  uses.  Nights, 
and  Sundays,  it  is  a  depot  for  doctrines.  There  are 
not  many  varieties  of  Christians  among  the  hills,  and 
again  there  are  many  that  seem  rather  to  delight 
in  being  sinners.  Bui  for  all  this,  during  the  fort 
night  I  have  been  dreaming  and  looking  nature  full 
in  the  face,  nature  as  unshaven,  unshorn  and  unkempt 
as  a  Tanker,  there  have  been  seven  sorts  of  doctrine 
set  forth  in  the  old  school-house,  to  about  the  same 
congregation.  Just  here  I  rise  to  explain  why  Tun- 
ker  is  used  instead  of  the  name  by  which  that  sect 
is  best  known.  Some  time  during  the  past  summer, 
a  grand  convention  of  Dunkards  was  held  in  a  little 
town  in  Illinois,  and  no  end  of  papers  had  it  that 
five  thousand  Drunkards  were  assembled,  setting  the 


THE   COUNTRY   "CORNERS."  141 

Good  Templars  packing  their  satchels  for  a  pilgrim 
age,  in  the  hope  of  catching  some  of  the  flock  before 
they  could  get  away. 

An  Episcopalian,  two  kinds  of  Methodists,  a  Pres 
byterian,  an  Adventist,  a  Soul-Sleeper  and  a  Baptist 
march  in  doctrinal  procession  through  the  fortnight  — 
dry,  damp,  sprinkled,  immersed;  bringing  prayer-books, 
hymn-books,  camp-meeting  songs ;  preaching  "  each 
after  his  kind."  What  will  happen  to  that  over-fed 
company  of  doctrine-lappers,  going  through  such  a 
bill  of  fare  from  grace  to  almonds,  and  apparently 
delighted  with  each  clean  plate !  "  They  pay  their 
money,  and  they  take  their  choice,"  but  it  is  the 
most  religiously-dissipated  community  extant. 

ANCIENT    HISTORY. 

How  would  you  like  to  be  a  volume  of  Ancient 
History,  substantially  bound  in  calf  or  —  something 
-be  live  history,  and  go  about  upon  two  feet?  In 
the  hill  country  the  chances  are  good  for  it.  You 
can  meet  a  man  any  day  in  the  street,  going  about 
his  business,  who  will  tell  you  things  that  he  saw 
in  the  year  of  grace  1800.  Arid  it  will  not  be  a 
man  on  three  or  four  legs  that  will  do  it,  but  one 
who  at  sight  could  beat  "Weston  at  honest  walking. 
Nearly  every  man  of  them  is  about  as  certain  to 
have  a  panther,  bear  or  wolf  story,  as  he  is  to  have 
a  shadow  when  he  goes  out  in  the  sunshine.  "  The 
almond-tree "  of  Ecclesiastes  shines  here.  The  order 
of  the  silver  hair  —  thanks  to  clean  water,  pure  air,  sim- 


142  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

pie  habits  and  a  kind  Providence — is  as  numerous 
here  as  in  an  audience  the  writer  once  had  in  little 
Rhody,  where  quite  one-half  wore  the  silver  crown. 
The  congregation  looked  as  if  they  had  been  out 
bareheaded  in  a  snow-storm,  and  the  flakes  had  not 
all  melted.  But  they  were  not  feeble,  tremulous  peo 
ple  of  the  "lean  and  slippered  pantaloon,"  but  sturdy- 
legged  and  full-fronted,  and  faces  so  frosty  and  ruddy 
that  they  made  you  think  of  October  apples.  Many 
of  them  had  been  sailors  and  sea-captains,  and  breathed 
salt  air,  and  been  drenched  in  salt  water  till  they 
were  fairly  pickled  and  apt  "  to  keep." 

WHO    ARE    PIONEERS'? 

Within  a  month  these  young  old  boys  have  put 
the  wilderness  all  back  upon  these  cleared  fields  for 
me,  and  built  up  the  woods,  and  peopled  them  with 
things  unchristian  and  uncanny.  They  talk  as  famil 
iarly  of  1805  as  if  it  were  last  week,  arid  they  fancy 
they  were  the  first  settlers.  Perhaps  not.  Man  does 
his  best  to  make  indelible  evidences  of  his  existence, 
and  to  leave  them  upon  the  earth.  Nature  watches 
him  awhile,  and  then  amuses  herself  with  effacing  his 
records,  and  sifting  fine  mould  and  seeds  and  leaves 
upon  his  highways,  and  smoothing  over  his  graves, 
and  the  young  forests  spring  up,  cultivation  relapses 
into  wilderness,  and  the  globe  is  as  ready  as  a  clean 
slate  for  a  new  set  of  pioneer  boys.  When  the 
scouts  of  civilization  first  struck  northern  Indiana, 
they  found  forests  that  the  sun  never  shone  in, 


143 

where  Indian  trails  grew  dusky  in  the  great  solitude. 
They  were  the  Christopher  Colons  of  Indiana.  But 
one  day  a  surveyor,  running  a  government  line,  strug 
gled  through  twilight  thickets  as  dense  as  a  cane- 
brake,  and  broke  out  at  once  into  a  —  vineyard !  A 
breadth  of  some  twenty  acres  was  purple  and  golden 
with  grapes.  Choice  varieties  from  the  Rhine,  they 
were  brought  thither  by  forgotten  hands  in  some  im 
memorial  year.  Men  had  lived  here  then.  Women 
had  sung  the  vine-dresser's  song  in  this  wilderness. 
Children  had  grasped  the  rich  clusters  with  stained 
fingers.  Whoever  they  were,  they  had  gone.  The 
young  forest  had  asserted  its  ancestral  right  to  the 
old  soil,  and  the  vines  had  clung  to  it  and  surmounted 
the  tallest  trees,  and  swelled  like  the  great  billows  of 
a  green  sea.  Make  that  surveyor  a  little  later  in  his 
work,  and  no  trace  would  have  remained  of  the  chil 
dren  of  the  Rhine.  But  for  years  the  new  race  of 
"  pioneers"  bore  away  in  the  mellow  autumns  the 
luscious  produce  that  foreign  hands  had  planted  for 
they  knew  not  whom.  So  Nature  makes  room  for 
the  marching  generations. 


CHAPTEK  XVIII. 

AQUARIUS  THE  WATER-BEARER. 

IT  rains !  It  is  the  paradise  of  Batrachians.  Batra- 
chians  are  frogs,  and  frogs  are  rana.  Hence 
rainy,  and  there  you  have  a  derivation  crazier  than 
Home  Tooke's.  The  waves  at  Chadwick's  Bay  come 
galloping  in  from  the  sea  like  plumed  troopers,  and 
the  white-caps  "  show  a  light "  away  out  to  the  edge  of 
the  horizon.  The  broad  leaves  of  the  bass  wood  by  my 
window  droop  and  drip  in  the  rain  like  the  ears  of  a 
meditative  hound.  Little  children  are  running  to  and 
fro  with  little  yelps  of  delight,  and  a  spare  skirt  flung 
over  their  heads  from  behind  like  a  squirrel's  tail.  A 
woman  stands  in  the  door  of  a  house  with  her  arms 
akimbo,  trying  to  get  her  eye  upon  one  of  them. 
You  have  met  akimbo  people.  Their  elbows  are  sharp. 
They  are  deadly  weapons.  Such  folks  should  live  in 
scabbards.  If  she  gets  hold  of  the  "  one  of  them" 
she  will  make  the  little  midge  acquainted  with  the 
stern  realities  of  life.  Yonder  is  a  rooster  wet  down 
to  a  peak.  His  scimetar  tail  is  only  a  single  dagger 
of  a  feather.  He  looks  sorry.  The  crow  is  washed 
out  of  him. 

You  keep  wiping  the  window-panes  on  the  mside 


144 


AQUARIUS   THE   WATER-BEARER.  145 


because  they  are  filmed  with  water  OD  the 
You  know  better,  and  so  does  the  man  who  feels  in 
his  pockets  for  something  that  is  not  in  them.  Right 
vest  pocket,  left  vest  pocket,  right  breast  pocket,  left 
breast  pocket,  right  hind  pocket,  left  hind  pocket, 
right  pantaloons  pocket,  left  pantaloons  pocket.  He 
will  stand  there  and  make  the  rounds  once,  twice, 
thrice,  and  then  whip  off  his  hat  and  find  it  there  ! 
He  is  not  logical.  None  of  us  are. 

Eaves  are  busy,  water-spouts  jolly,  arid  gutters  con 
gested.  There  is  a  splashing  in  little  puddles,  a 
drumming  on  tin  pans,  a  tinkling  in  cisterns,  and  a 
tattoo  upon  roofs.  It  is  a  mass-meeting  of  rains,  — 
perpendicular,  oblique,  horizontal,  and  no  rainbow  in 
a  fortnight  !  Engines  hardly  have  to  stop  to  take 
water  ! 

You  look  down  from  your  window  on  two  currents 
of  umbrellas.  Forget  there  is  anybody  under  them, 
and  it  is  as  queer  as  a  dream  born  of  a  Welsh  rarebit 
at  midnight.  It  resembles  a  stream  of  mildewed,  ani 
mated  and  locomotive  toadstools  from  Brobdignag. 
They  drift  against  each  other,  then  part  and  float 
away.  There  are  sleek  silken  ones  that  shine  as  if  it 
rained  copal.  There  are  great  blue  ones  with  a  bor 
der,  and  big  enough  for  dog-tents,  that  move  in  a 
lumbering  way.  Old  folks  underneath.  They  say 
"  umbriU."  There  are  faded  ones,  the  color  of  a  Con 
federate  soldier's  jacket.  There  are  wrecks  of  fellows 
with  their  slender  bones  thrust  through  the  dingy 

surface,  —  bad  cases  of  compound  fracture.     There's  a 

7 


146  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

parasol  scudding  along  amid  the  tumefied  dinginess, 
like  a  bright  little  flower  afloat  on  a  very  turgid  cur 
rent.  It  dodges  in  and  out  among  the  troughs  of  the 
sea.  Every  overgrown  umbrella  is  a  threatening  bil 
low.  Poor  little  fair-weather  flower,  and  dreadfully 
wilted  and  pelted  by  the  rain.  Its  owner  was  caught 
out.  You  see  a  white  flicker  of  skirts  as  she  scuds. 

"ARIES  THE  RAM." 

There  goes  an  umbrella  drawn  down  over  the  own 
er's  eyes.  He  lowers  his  brow  and  forges  ahead  with 
out  minding  who  is  coming.  He  is  as  bad  to  meet 
as  a  Texas  steer,  with  his  unicorn  of  an  umbrella. 
Umbrella  or  no  umbrella,  he  butts  his  way  through 
the  world.  Clear  the  track  when  you  see  him,  unless 
you  are  carrying  a  ladder.  If  so,  just  swing  it  around 
endwise  and  make  for  him  !  He  is  always  in  the  sign 
Aries.  Everybody  knows  him.  When  he  argues  he 
only  butts,  and  when  he  butts  he  shuts  his  eyes.  In 
telligent  adversary  !  He  is  a  heavy-weight  wherever 
he  is.  He  might  do  for  ballast,  if  only  he  would  keep 
still. 

"Aries  "  does  not  like  flowers.  He  calls  them  "  po 
sies."  A  moss-rose  bud  would  be  about  as  much  at 
home  in  his  button-hole  as  it  would  in  an  elephant's 
ear.  He  has  no  taste,  except  it  be  a  beefsteak  taste. 
His  flower  is  a  sunflower.  He  is  coarse,  hard,  hearty, 
and  he  succeeds.  What  is  success?  Not  that  I  do 
not  respect  sunflowers, —  those  big  rosettes  with  their 
curious  mosaic  and  Nicholson-pavement  of  seeds.  I 


AQUARIUS   THE   WATER-BEAKER.  147 

think  of  them  in  the  same  thought  with  the  just-ready- 
to-wilt  poppy,  and  the  china-asters  and  the  sweet- 
williams  and  the  hollyhocks,  —  the  dear  old  tribes 
of  our  grandmothers'  day. 


GEMINI    THE    TWINS." 


How  many  young  fellows  there  are  in  the  street, 
armed  with  umbrellas  every  one,  and  looking  for 
somebody.  Watch  the  girls  dart  out  of  store-doors, 
and  make  for  cover  like  startled  hares.  There  they 
go,  arm  in  arm,  like  two-thirds  of  the  triple  link  badge 
of  Odd-Fellowship:  "friendship,  love  and  truth,"  the 
umbrella  lowered  modestly  down  so  that  their  two 
heads  are  in  the  garret  of  it,  and  drifting  very  slowly 
indeed.  It  is  a  pleasant  day  beneath  it.  Had  they 
been  in  the  ark, —  they  two, —  they  would  not  have 
thought  it  rained.  Umbrellas  have  determined  desti 
nies. 

It  rains,  and  the  sea  of  umbrellas  is  yet  ebbing  and 
flowing.  There  goes  a  high  stepper.  You  know  it 
by  the  way  the  umbrella  bobs  up  and  down,  like  the 
cork  of  a  line  with  something  nibbling  at  the  hook. 
Yonder  is  a  man  who  walks  with  his  elbows  when  he 
is  in  a  hurry,  for  he  lifts  them  whenever  he  "crooks 
the  pregnant  hinges  of  the  knee,"  just  as  a  horse 
works  his  ears  every  time  he  swallows.  Here  comes 
a  glider.  The  umbrella  floats  evenly  along.  There  a 
man  carries  his  umbrella  at  half-cock.  It  hangs  down 
his  back  like  a  peddler's  pack.  He  hails  you.  He 
hails  everybody.  He  flings  scraps  of  talk  this  side 


148  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

and  that  as  he  goes.  He  is  a  pleasant  friend,  if  you 
don't  mind  that  love-token  of  a  slap  in  the  back  he 
is  always  giving. 


The  clouds  "hold  up."  The  sun  throws  off  his 
wet  blankets,  and  touches  up  the  glittering  signs,  and 
the  glossy  water-proofs  that  are  executed  at  store- 
doors,  and  the  open  umbrellas  swung  up  by  the  peak, 
to  give  you  a  damp  whisk  and  challenge  a  buyer. 
The  little  Othellos  of  bootblacks,  their  "  occupation 
gone,"  that  have  been  casting  disconsolate  looks  all 
day  at  the  splashed  leather  as  it  spattered  by,  brighten 
up  a  little,  reflecting  in  their  faces  some  faint  fore- 
glimmer  of  a  "shine."  The  wet  arrow  on  the  neigh 
boring  church  gives  a  flash  as  if  somebody  brandished 
it.  The  crowd  fold  their  tents  like  the  Arabs.  The 
umbrella  sea  subsides,  and  the  people  come  to  the  sur 
face.  But  the  character  of  the  picture  is  not  gone, 
only  changed.  One  holds  out  his  closed  umbrella 
by  the  tip  of  the  handle,  much  as  you  swing  up  a 
rabbit  by  the  ears.  Another  grasps  it  around  the 
waist,  and  carries  it  at  trail  arms.  A  third  reverses 
it,  as  if  he  were  a  soldier  at  a  funeral.  Another 
never  stops  to  button  the  umbrella,  but  makes  a  cane 
of  it,  the  cambric  corners  untidily  flapping  as  he  goes. 
But  the  most  miserable  of  men  comes  yonder.  He 
has  chucked  his  umbrella  under  his  arm,  writh  the 
ferrule  thrust  out  behind,  like  a  bowsprit  at  the  wrong 
end  of  the  craft,  and  trained  at  precisely  the  right 


AQUARIUS    THE    WATER-BEARER.  149 

angle  to  put  out  an  eye  for  the  next  man  behind 
him,  who  has  no  idea  that  he  is  charging  on  a  pike.  He 
is  a  two-footed  hornet.  Can  you  think  of  anything 
more  uncomfortable  than  an  umbrella  in  your  eye? 
Many  a  man  has  had  a  beam  in  it  without  knowing 
it,  but  an  umbrella,  never !  That  human  hornet  is  a 
selfish  man.  His  umbrella  points  out  his  character 
like  a  finger-post.  His  maxim  is  vulgar  and  profane. 
It  is  "the  devil  take  the  hindmost." 

A  rainy  day  is  a  good  day  to  see  in, —  better  than 
when  the  sun  shines.  As  to-day  grows  duller  and 
dimmer,  yesterday  grows  brighter  and  nearer.  We  can 
look  a  long  way  into  the  past  when  it  rains.  We  re 
member.  It  is  pleasant.  It  is  sad.  It  is  like  the  music 
of  Ossian.  It  is  both. 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

HILL  COUSINS. 

HUNTING  health  and  hunting  happiness  are 
alike.  You  seldom  find  them  where  you  seek 
them.  They  come  to  you  by  the  way  at  unexpected 
times  and  places.  The  devil  is  credited  with  a  great 
deal  of  mischief  that  the  stomach  is  guilty  of.  Many 
a  gloomy  doctrine  is  born,  not  of  theology,  but  of  cold 
dumplings  and  toasted  cheese  at  bedtime.  The  writer 
has  been  looking  for  strength  among  the  hills  where 
the  roads  are  set  upon  one  end  and  paved,  you  would 
think,  by  old  torrents.  He  rambled  without  much  of 
any  purpose, —  a  sort  of  gypsying, —  and  he  found 
cousins. 

There  are  three  kinds  of  cousins  in  America.  In 
Scotland  there  are  forty.  They  are  reckoned  by  num 
bers, —  first,  second  and  third.  In  cousins  I  am  spe 
cially  gifted,  for  I  have  sixty,  and  the  most  of  them 
are  sprinkled  among  the  hills  of  New  York,  in  the 
counties  of  Oneida,  Lewis,  Herkimer  and  Otsego. 
Take  them  as  a  race,  the  average  distance  between 
the  cradle  and  the  grave  is  about  four  miles.  They 
have  read  the  proverb  of  "  the  rolling  stone,"  and 
most  of  them  have  gathered  moss.  Children  gener 
ally  set  great  store  by  uncles  and  aunts,  always  except- 


150 


HILL    COUSINS.  151 

ing  "  the  Babes  in  the  Woods,"  whom  Robin  Red 
breast  "  did  cover  them  with  leaves."  When  these 
are  gone,  and  the  year  wanes  into  autumn,  cousins 
are  in  their  prime.  They  last  till  snow  comes,  and 
sometimes  into  the  dead  of  winter.  Hence  cousins 
are  a  desirable  kind  of  relative  to  have.  As  pomolo- 
gists  say,  they  are  "good  keepers." 

As  you  get  older,  cousins  rise  in  value,  because 
they  grow  scarce,  but  you  must  not  let  very  long 
intervals  elapse  between  meetings.  That  is,  you  must 
not  wait  over  twenty  years.  I  waited  thirty.  The 
changes  are  suggestive.  Should  you  meet  a  cousin  you 
had  not  set  eyes  upon  since  "  cats  wore  fillets,"  which 
means  "  ever  so  long,"  do  not  straighten  up  into  an 
exclamation-point  and  cry  out  over  the  ravages  of 
time.  Just  consider  that  you  are  only  contemplating 
yourself  in  a  looking-glass  made  of  a  cousinly  face,  and 
you  will  grow  quiet  as  an  oyster.  When  people  fall 
to  telling  one  another,  after  a  score  of  years  of  absence, 
that  neither  has  changed,  that  they  should  know  each 
other  anywhere,  swear  them  and  see !  Twenty  to  one 
they  are  both  lying  in  a  sort  of  harmless,  feeble  way, 
in  an  attempt  to  make  themselves  believe  that  the 
Old  Haymaker  has  fallen  asleep  in  a  fence-corner, 
with  his  scythe  hanging  upon  an  apple-tree  over  his 
head. 

Remember  a  girl-cousin  of  sixteen,  round  as  a  ring 
and  fair  as  the  moon,  with  glittering  teeth  and  voice 
cheery  as  a  morning  song,  and  hair  that  tumbles  down 
her  shoulders  like  a  capillary  cataract.  Leave  her  to 


152  SUMMER- SAVORY. 

time  for  a  couple  of  dogVages,  and  then  meet  her 
somewhere,  and  if  Adam's-apple  does  not  take  a  start 
for  a  late  growth  in  that  throat  of  jours,  then  you 
must  have  bolted  the  troublesome  fruit  in  your  child 
hood.  You  scan  the  face  for  traces  of  the  girl  that 
was;  you  pick  up  a  few  scattered  features  here  and 
there,  and  try  to  reconstruct  them  into  some  sem 
blance  of  the  old-time  cousin,  but  it  is  a  failure.  And 
all  the  while  you  are  doing,  this,  Jane  is  busy  taking 
you  to  pieces  and  building  you  over,  and  there  is  a 
twin  failure.  Then  she  nerves  herself  up  to  men 
tion  her  grandchildren,  and  you  recall  a  joke  dead 
forty  years  ago,  and  so  you  make  the  best  of  it  and 
laugh,  "as  it  were,"  across  the  graves  of  a  genera 
tion,  and  bid  each  other  good-by,  and  this  dice-box 
of  a  world  gives  another  shake,  and  yon  meet  no 
more. 

When  first-cousins  give  out,  there  is  a  stock  of  the 
"  second "  sort  ready  to  your  hand.  In  fact,  kind 
nature  seems  to  make  provision  for  a  fresh  crop  of 
cousins  as  the  years  go  on.  As  a  rule,  they  "hold 
out"  better  than  nearer  relatives,  and  "stick  to" 
faster  and  longer.  A  brother  is  a  good  thing.  Like 
wise  a  sister.  But  we  get  to  know  each  other  un 
comfortably  well,  and  live  so  long  in  the  same  house 
and  wrangle  over  the  same  doughnut,  that  unless 
we  are  of  the  good  children  that  die  young,  there 
is  not  much  chance  for  anybody's  quoting  and  saying, 
"Behold  how  these  brethren  love  one  another."  The 
probabilities  of  fraternal  affection  increase,  I  think, 


HILL    COUSINS.  153 

with  the  number  of  brothers  and  sisters ;  that  is,  the 
relations  among  the  many  are  less  intimate  than  they 
are  among  the  few.  Nobody  can  endure  the  steady 
stare  of  a  microscope  without  suffering,  if  he  can  with 
out  flinching.  "  The  fewer  we  are  the  more  let  us 
love  one  another,"  is  a  kind  of  sentimental  twaddle. 
Remember  Cain  and  Abel  !  Consider  the  Siamese 
twins!  As  a  rule,  Damon  and  Pythias  are  not  broth 
ers.  We  used  to  read  in  the  first  book  of  Latin  a 
conversation  between  a  lion  and  a  certain  insignificant 
animal,  wherein  the  little  one  taunted  the  big  one 
with  having  a  small  family.  The  reply  was  a  cross 
of  cheap  magnificence,  partly  leonine,  and  the  rest 
Roman  :  "  One,  but  a  lion  !  " 

LIVING    IN    MICROSCOPES. 

Writing  of  magnifiers:  a  man  might  as  well  live 
in  a  microscope,  with  an  eye  at  it  that  never  winks, 
as  to  be  a  clergyman.  The  public  turns  itself  into 
a  policeman  in  plain  clothes  to  "shadow"  the  minister. 
His  patience  is  tested,  his  temper  is  tried,  his  indigna 
tion  aroused,  and  he  has  incessant  temptations  to  talk 
tomahawk  and  forget  to  be  a  gentleman.  The  virtue 
of  the  Toledo  blade  was  not  in  its  keenness,  but  its 
temper;  that,  though  you  bent  the  point  to  the  hilt, 
it  never  flew  to  pieces.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
fragment,  a  vulgar  fraction  of  a  gentleman.  He  is 
gentleman  ad  unguem  —  to  the  claw  —  or  not  at  all. 
The  temper  of  the  blade  is  the  spirit  of  the  man, 
and  how  refined  it  must  be  in  celestial  fire  to  main- 


154  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

tain  its  integrity !  It  seems  to  me  peculiarly  true  of 
clergymen  that  they  have  nothing  earthly  to  fear  but 
their  friends.  They  are  in  more  danger  from  them 
than  from  their  enemies  or  the  devil. 

There  are  merciful  laws  for  the '  preservation  of 
game.  There  are  times  and  seasons  when  it  is  wicked 
to  slay  it.  Clergymen  enjoy  no  such  legislation. 
They  appear  to  be  game  all  the  year  round.  We  are 
quite  worn  out  with  hearing  of  ecclesiastical  falls  and 
clerical  wolves  in  woolen  clothes.  Let  the  lawyers 
have  a  chance,  for  there  are  more  bones  of  Little  Red 
Riding  Hoods  in  the  courts  of  the  law  than  there 
are  in  the  courts  of  the  Lord.  Let  a  physician  take 
a  tumble,  now  and  then.  Let  some  merchant  be  a 
cataract.  Let  us  not  have  all  the  Niagaras  rolling 
down  the  pulpit  stairs.  Those  people  who  waste 
their  time  in  "  stalking "  ministers  are  generally 
poachers  themselves. 

Back  to  the  cousins:  there  are  few  lions  among 
them,  and  not  a  mouthful  of  Latin.  Such  quail-like 
broods  of  cousins  in  the  same  nest !  Eight,  eleven, 
thirteen,  and  they  kick  the  beam  all  the  way  from 
one  hundred  and  forty  to  two  hundred  and  thirty, 
and  as  a  rule,  they  pull  together.  Have  you  heard 
of  any  battle  in  the  Empire  State?  When  two  fall 
out  it  is  a  quarrel,  but  when  many  come  to  blows  it 
is  a  war. 

When  the  Waldenses  were  made  to  sing,  "  For 
the  strength  of  the  hills  we  bless  Thee,"  it  was  a 
true  song  in  more  senses  than  one.  They  furnished 


HILL   COUSINS.  155 

the  Christians  with  caves  and  rugged  fastnesses  as 
shelter  from  the  persecuting  Sauls.  They  furnish  you 
with  a  more  vigorous  play  of  muscle  and  a  freer  res 
piration.  Wherever  you  are  in  Otsego  the  horizon 
is  scolloped  with  hills.  They  roll  grandly,  carrying 
huge  bowlders  up  to  the  sky-line  as  if  they  were 
babbles,  and  tossing  the  hemlocks  and  pines,  the 
beeches  and  maples,  as  if  they  were  lily  leaves  on 
stormy  water.  Otsego  county  has  pleasant  memories 
to  tens  of  thousands.  To  "  H.  and  E.  Phinney,  Coo- 
perstown,"  the  child-world  has  been  indebted  for  small 
parcels  of  happiness,  —  those  blessed  little  primers, 
filled  with  pictures  of  birds  and  beasts  and  good  boys 
and  angelic  girls.  Think  of  happiness,  "  price  one 
cent ! "  The  writer  has  a  little  menagerie,  to-day,  in 
a  blue  paper  cover,  bearing  the  imprint  of  the  Coo- 
perstown  firm,  that  was  purchased  with  a  Spanish 
sixpence  that  had  been  bitten  to  test  it,  and  lost  in 
the  street  and  trodden  on,  and  carried  in  a  buckskin 
purse  and  a  red  morocco  pocket-book,  and  knotted 
up  in  a  bandana  handkerchief,  and  paid  out  for  candy 
and  blackberries  and  jewsharps ;  but  it  never  bought 
quite  so  much  perfect  delight  as  when  it  was  ex 
changed  for  H.  and  E.  Phinney's  "  Book  of  Beasts 
and  Birds,"  and  it  remains  to-day  a  precious  souvenir 
of  a  ruder,  simpler  time. 

Many  of  the  descendants  of  them  that  ticked  their 
way  into  the  county  with  an  axe  —  the  woodman's 
clock  —yet  remain  among  the  pleasant  hills,  and  the 
blood  of  the  old  stock  yet  courses  in  the  veins  of 


156  SUMMER- SAVORY. 

many  stalwart  men  and  pleasant  women.  After  dark, 
one  night,  a  wagon-load  of  cousins  climbed  rocky 
hills,  and  drove  through  a  ravine  black  as  a  wolf's 
mouth,  and  wound  up  to  the  summit  of  the  hill, 
where,  in  a  spacious  home,  dwell  a  pair  that  pull 
down  the  steelyards  at  about  four  hundred  pounds ; 
the  house  lively  with  three  generations,  and  there 
might  easily  be  four  without  working  a  miracle.  A 
hearty  welcome  and  —  feather-beds,  fat  as  if  they  had 
been  direct  importations  from  Amsterdam  or  Rot 
terdam  or  Potsdam,  or  some  other  profane  region, 
awaited  us.  A  great  wavy  farm  lay  nround  us,  eighty 
acres  of  meadow,  and  regiments  of  corn,  and  a  sea  of 
pasture.  The  milk  of  two  hundred  cows  is  struck 
off  into  cheese,  and  dated  like  medallions.  The  curd 
squeaks  in  your  teeth  as  it  did  forty  years  ago,  when 
they  made  cheeses  about  as  big  as  a  dinner-plate. 
Spring  water  comes  down  from  the  hills  of  its  own 
accord,  and  runs  itito  the  house,  the  barn,  everywhere. 
The  breakfast-table  is  broad  and  long  and  laden.  You 
think  the  prayer  for  "  our  daily  bread "  means  far 
more  than  you  ever  dreamed  it  did,  when  you  see 
how  the  sections  disappear  by  the  loaf.  The  hills 
are  a  hungry  place.  They  talk  at  breakfast  of  the 
owls  they  heard  last  night,  of  the  hundred  turkeys 
killed  by  foxes  on  the  farm  this  summer.  It  is  a 
new  world.  Breakfast  over,  the  family  scatter  like  a 
bell-mouthed  musket.  A  boy  is  driving  away  a  flock 
of  geese.  A  dog  is  taking  the  cowrs  to  pasture.  The 
mower  begins  to  tick  like  a  gigantic  locust  in  the 


HILL   COUSINS.  157 

hill-meadow.     The  girls  are  busy  with  the  great  white 
sea  in  the  cheese  factory. 

There  is  a  spot,  just  over  the  ridge,  you  hasten  to 
see.  It  is  u  a  city  set  on  a  hill,  that  cannot  be  hid  "- 
the  silent  acres  where  "  the  rude  forefathers  of  the 
harnlet  sleep."  Near  it  stands  the  "  Taylor  Hill 
Meeting-House,"  with  a  rusty  "  1822 "  served  up  on 
a  wooclen  platter  in  the  gable, —  a  house  without 
spire  or  belfry,  and  unchanged  since  the  day  of  ded 
ication,  when  preachers  rejoiced  and  thanked  God, 
who  joined  the  church  triumphant  many  a  long  year 
ago,  and  men  and  women  sang  Old  Hundred  and 
Coronation  who  have  learned  the  New  Song.  The 
church  has  neither  pastor  nor  people.  The  front 
door  is  locked  with  a  stick  of  stove-wood.  You 
open  it  and  enter  the  simple  sanctuary.  On  that 
raised  seat  along  the  wall  sat  the  singers  —  the  leader 
a  gray-haired  deacon  who  pitched  the  tune  for  forty 
years.  Girls,  wives,  grandmothers,  dead.  And  there 
is  the  pulpit,  like  the  half  of  an  old-fashioned  wine 
glass  fastened  against  the  wall.  Two  little  nights  of 
stairs,  straight  as  "the  narrow  way,"  lead  up  to  it. 
If  Elder  Bennett  ever  stood  in  it,  he  must  have 
looked  like  an  oak  with  its  foot  in  a  door-yard  vase. 
You  enter  the  little  Zion's  look-out.  On  the  narrow 
ledge,  guiltless  of  trimming  as  a  wooden  bread-tray, 
lies  the  Bible.  Like  the  church,  it  bears  the  date  of 
1822.  The  bare  board  seat  is  as  it  was  in  the  days 
of  the  fathers. 


158  SUMMEK-SAVOKY. 

THE    OLD    ELDER. 

You  remember  in  childhood  seeing  the  little  old 
preacher,  Elder  Stephen  Taylor,  who  said  goin'  and 
comin'  and  praisin'  —  but  what  matters  a  worthless 
"g"  or  so?  —  stand  in  that  pulpit  and  preach.  It 
was  a  sermon,  as  you  recall  it  now,  full  of  good 
sense  and  pure  doctrine,  and  quaint,  apt  illustration, 
and  decided  power.  You  remember  how  earnest  he 
became,  and  how  his  bald  head  grew  red  like  "the 
old  man  eloquent's "  in  Congress,  as  he  made  for 
some  blundering  "  gentleman  from "  somewhere,  and 
pelted  him  with  facts  and  dates,  and  chapter  and 
verse,  as  if  they  were  so  many  cobble-stones.  One 
of  his  illustrations  you  will  never  forget.  He  wras 
talking  of  living  "above  the  world,"  and  he  said: 
"Haven't  you  seen,  my  brethren,  an  eagle  when  at 
tacked  by  a  flock  of  little  birds,  any  one  of  which 
he  could  have  killed  with  a  stroke  of  his  talon  or  a 
blow  of  his  beak?  But  they  are  too  many  for  him. 
They  dart  up  beneath  him  and  vex  him.  They  pounce 
upon  him  from  above.  They  scream  around  his  head 
and  bewilder  him.  Pie  sits  upon  the  tall  hemlock 
as  long  as  he  can,  and  then  spreads  his  great  wings. 
Does  he  fly  down  and  hide  in  the  bush?  Does  he 
waste  his  strength  in  attempting  to  fight  an  enemy 
that  he  cannot  number?  Oh,  no,  dear  friends,  he 
gives  a  sweep  or  two,  and  up  he  goes  above  the  hills 
and  the  trees.  The  flock  of  little  birds  struggle  up 
after  him,  but  higher  and  higher  he  rises  into  clearer, 
thinner  air ;  he  leaves  his  busy  enemies  one  after 


HILL    COUSINS.  159 

another.  They  weary  of  wing,  and  sink  panting  back 
to  their  native  woods  again.  He  is  alone  in  the  sky; 
he  is  too  high  to  cast  a  shadow.  That  eagle,  brethren 
and  sisters,  is  the  human  soul,  and  those  little  birds 
are  the  sins  and  temptations  that  vex  us.  Never 
tarry  to  light  them.  Never  think  to  destroy  them, 
but  just  put  forth  the  strength  that  God  gives  you 
to  rise  above  them  all,  and  so  you  shall  be  nearer  to 
heaven  and  God.  This  is  bein',  as  the  poet  says, 
'  while  in,  above  the  world  ! ' ' 

The  years  that  are  gone  throng  in  at  the  open 
door.  You  descend  from  the  pulpit,  and  take  a  part 
ing  look  at  the  old  church.  On  that  cross-beam  is 
the  wreck  of  a  bird's  nest.  Not  so  widely  scattered 
is  the  brood  she  hovered  over  as  they  who  once 
gathered  within  these  walls.  You  pass  thoughtfully 
out  into  the  sunshine,  and  stand  in  the  shade  of  the 
old  church.  What  is  this  that  grows  so  rank,  and 
rattles  its  ripened  sprigs  in  the  morning  wind  ?  The 
air  is  sweet  with  its  aromatic  breath.  It  is  caraway ! 
In  the  davs  that  are  gone  the  congregation  brought 
their  luncheon  in  summer-time,  and  sat  in  the  shadow 
of  the  wall  between  sermons  and  talked  and  ate.  The 
mothers  and  the  girls  brought  their  inevitable  ^clus 
ters  of  caraway,  and  seeds  were  scattered  here,  and 
have  sprung  up  self-sown  year  after  year,  "  even  until 
this  day."  What  a  sermon  upon  human  life  is  this ! 
The  caraway  remains,  but  the  fingers  that  strewed  it 
are  nerveless  with  age,  or  have  forgotten  their  cun 
ning  altogether. 


160  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

They  propose  to  repair  and  modernize  the  old  meet 
ing-house,  but  let  them  not  lay  desecrating  hands  upon 
the  pulpit.  It  is  as  quaint  as  one  of  old  Herrick's 
poems.  Let  them  carpet  and  cushion  and  stain  and 
grain  pew  and  aisle  as  they  will ;  but  farther  than 
renewing  the  simple  coat  of  white,  let  them  not  touch 
that  queer  little  watchman's  box  for  the  sentry  of  the 
Lord. 

A    HEALTH    AT    BRIDGEWATER. 

We  have  been  riding  to-day  on  the  heavy  swells 
of  Herkiiner  and  Otsego.  The  streams  through  all 
the  region  have  an  errand  and  a  voice  as  they  run 
along  their  rough  McAdarns.  Every  one  of  them 
is  as  busy  as  a  haymaker.  You  cross  the  Unadilla 
—  as  pretty  a  name  for  a  girl  as  it  is  for  a  river  — 
fringed  with  willows  that  are  forever  looking  at  them 
selves  in  the  glancing  water,  as  if  some-  gigantic  naiad 
had  stitched  the  bank  with  double  willows  and  left 
the  foliage  waving  free  in  the  water  and  the  air. 
"  The  daughters  of  Judah  "  could  not  have  hung  their 
harps  in  a  prettier  place.  You  go  through  the  old 
village  of  Bridgewater,  that  has  grown  like  a  candle 
-less  as  it  grows  older;  busier,  if  not  bigger,  forty 
years  ago  than  it  is  to-day.  Bridgewater  has  a  mem- 
ory.  ^ 

Many  a  year  ago  one  of  the  dead  presidents  of 
Madison  University  was  a  student  at  Hamilton  Col 
lege.  He  had  just  been  graduated.  He  had  taken 
the  valedictory.  He  was  on  his  way  to  his  hill-top 
home  in  Edmeston,  and  he  halted  at  Bridgewater  for 


HILL   COUSIXS.  161 

dinner.  There  were  with  him  the  girl  he  was  going 
to  marry,  her  brother,  and  a  young  sister  of  his  own. 
I  must  lay  that  clod  of  a  word  upon  them  all  to 
day.  1  must  say  they  are  dead.  At  that  dinner 
the  young  student,  as  was  the  fashion  sixty  years 
ago,  called  for  a  bottle  of  wine,  and  filled  the  glasses, 
and  stood  up  and  drank  to  the  days  to  come.  That 
was  fifty-six  years  ago,  and  all  the  future  they  were 
thinking  of  as  they  drank  has  slipped  silently  and 
solemnly  into  the  past.  A  son  of  the  student  and 
the  girl  halted  a  moment  to-day  in  front  of  the  old 
tavern  where  they  met,  and  this  world  looked  very 
narrow  and  very  perishable  indeed — just  an  isthmus 
covered  with  grass  and  roughened  with  many  graves. 
7* 


OHAPTEE  XX. 

JAW. 

SAMSON  was  the  most  eloquent  man  of  ancient 
times.  He  overwhelmed  his  Philistine  audience 
with  jaw,  albeit  it  was  the  jaw  of  an  ass.  Why  not? 
Balaam's  beast  saw  what  his  master  could  not  discern. 
He  had  an  angelic  vision,  and  spoke  right  out.  Jaws 
go  in  pairs,  as  Noah's  menagerie  went  into  the  ark, 
but  it  is  only  the  under-jaw  that  has  a  character  in 
all  creatures  but  the  shark.  As  for  him,  that  com 
pound  adjustment  of  level's  bringing  the  two  rows  of 
cutlery  together  and  setting  them  wide  like  the  blades 
of  a  pair  of  shears,  gives  his  countenance  an  open 
expression  that  is  winning  if  not  amiable. 

I  once  visited  a  rolling-mill  where  iron  runs  about 
like  quicksilver,  and  railroad  bars, —  a  lift  for  four 
knotty-armed  men, —  glide  between  the  rollers,  and 
thin  out  as  they  glide,  as  smoothly  as  satin  ribbons 
run  over  a  shop-girl's  forefinger.  I  happened  there 
when  a  row  of  boarders,  chuckle-headed  like  young 
robins,  were  eating  a  lunch  of  cold  iron,  and  snipping 
oft'  the  ponderous  bars  that  were  fed  to  them  as  easily 
and  noiselessly  as  a  rabbit  nips  a  clover  blossom.  It 
was  an  exhibition  of  jaw  that  Samson  would  have  en 
joyed. 

162 


JAW.  163 

When  a  man's  head  slopes  up  to  the  ridge  of  self- 
esteem,  and  then  tumbles  abruptly  down  behind,  you 
know  he  is  a  man  given  to  reflection, —  in  a  look 
ing-glass;  that  he  has  the  grace  of  charity, —  for  him 
self;  and  you  envy  him  a  little.  But  you  do  not  quite 
know  a  man  until  you  have  measured  his  lower  jaw. 
When  it  retreats  meekly  away,  as  if  it  had  some  no 
tion  of  slipping  down  through  his  cravat  into  his 
bosom,  you  expect  to  hear  him  apologizing  for  his 
existence.  He  came  into  the  world  with  a  snaffle-bit 
in  his  mouth  that  holds  him  back  by  the  jaw,  and 
never  slips  out.  What  can  we  do  for  a  horse  that 
neither  pulls  by  the  bit  nor  draws  by  the  traces? 

But  when  that  jaw  juts  squarely  and  boldly  out 
like  a  promontory,  and  closes  upon  its  neighbor  like 
a  vise,  as  much  as  to  say,  "  Bring  on  your  walnuts  if 
they  want  cracking,"  he  has  what  is  called  grip  in  a 
bulldog,  and  tenacity  in  a  general.  The  only  way  to 
coax  him  is  to  kill  him.  You  have  seen  a  man  with 
such  an  osseous  formation.  It  took  a  small  lime-kiln 
to  make  it.  Like  the  antlers  of  an  elk,  it  is  the  most 
wonderful  part  of  him.  Moreover,  his  superciliary 
arches  are  very  much  arched  indeed,  and  he  has  a  way 
of  lifting  the  fringe  of  eyebrow  at  times  that  provokes 
the  suspicion  that  he  can  slip  his  scalp  off  back  over 
his  head  like  a  nightcap,  if  he  tries.  Then  exactly 
over  the  eyes,  that  look  as  if  they  were  not  fast  colors, 
and  had  been  washed  in  two  waters,  and  exactly  over 
the  arches  that  are  nearly  sharp  enough  to  be  Gothic, 
and  halfway  up  the  slope,  rest  his  spectacles,  like  a 


164  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

couple  of  dormer-windows.  It  is  a  sort  of  two-story 
face,  with  two  rows  of  windows  in  it.  Then  his  long 
hair  flows  away  behind  his  ears,  and  rolls  down  the 
nape  of  his  neck  and  ripples  over  his  coat-collar  in  a 
kind  of  John-in-the-wilderness  way.  This  is  the  sort 
of  front  he  presents  when  anybody  opposes  him.  His 
voice  has  a  twang  to  it,  and  twangs  prolonged  make 
whines.  It  has  a  quaver  likewise.  He  has  inherited 
Samson's  own  weapon,  and  with  it  he  sets  the  doc 
trine  of  "ruling  majorities"  at  defiance.  He  resem 
bles  the  son  of  Manoah  in  two  ways:  he  treats  oppos 
ing  brethren  as  if  they  were  so  many  Philistines,  and 
when  they  are  too  much  for  him  he  bows  himself 
upon  the  pillars,  if  so  be  he  may  bring  down  the 
temple  in  which  he  cannot  reign. 

But  the  most  aggravating  thing  is  yet  to  be  told. 
Having  applied  the  purchase  of  that  jaw  to  a  question, 
and  held  on  as  vicious  as  a  vise  to  his  own  opinion, 
arid  worried  people  until  they  give  in  from  sheer  ex 
haustion,  this  man  will  rise  up  and  bring  his  two 
hands  together  at  the  finger-tips  like  a  V,  and  raise 
his  voice  and  his  eyebrows,  and  extol  the  beauty  of 
harmony,  and  say,  "  Behold,  how  good  and  how  pleas 
ant  a  thing  it  is  for  brethren  to  dwell  together  in 
unity,"  when  he  never  agreed  with  anybody  in  all 
his  life!  Poor  Philistines!  Jawed  to  death,  and  then 
congratulated  upon  the  disaster. 

This  man  is  no  fiction,  neither  is  he  a  stranger. 
He  is  in  church  and  state  and  social  life.  If  on  a 
jury,  prayers  for  the  hapless  eleven  are  in  order.  If 


JAW.  165 

leading  an  army,  he  pays  the  highest  price  demanded 
for  a  victory,  and  never  counts  the  cost.  You  can 
pick  him  out  as  you  could  Samson  in  the  temple,  for 
he  is  the  man  with  the  jawbone.  There  is  nothing 
like  an  appropriate  text  when  such  men  let  go  their 
hold :  u  With  the  jawbone  of  an  ass,  heaps  upon  heaps, 
with  the  jawbone  of  an  ass  have  1  slain  a  thousand 


CHAPTER  XXI. 

JUST  AND  GENEROUS. 

THE    OLD    GUAED. 

rip  HERE  he  paces,  to  and  fro,  his  red  signal  of  dan- 
_JL  ger  furled  under  his  arm.  He  encounters  water 
in  every  form.  Rain,  snow,  sleet,  hail,  fog  and  steam. 
Pie  is  blown  upon  by  thirty-two  winds.  Fire  tries 
him  summers,  and  frost  takes  him  in  hand  winters  — 
and  in  foot,  too,  for  that  matter —  but  he  never  flinches. 
How  many  men,  women  and  children  he  has  saved 
from  mutilation  and  death  ;  how  many  horses  from 
the  hands  of  the  knacker,  and  how  many  vehicles  from 
the  fate  of  kindling-wood,  nobody  knows;  but  then  I 
should  like  his  roll  of  achievements  better  than  the 
soldier's  who  had  killed  four  times  as  many.  He  has 
seen  millions  of  people  go  by,  and  cattle  from  a  thou 
sand  hills,  and  there  he  stands  as  faithful  as  a  light 
house.  But  he  cannot  last  forever.  Some  day  he 
must  surrender  the  little  red  flag.  He  has  been  the 
company's  servant  about  as  long  as  Jacob  served  to 
get  Rachel.  The  law  of  his  life  is  duty.  He  knows 
engines  by  their  talk,  and  freight  by  its  number.  He 
never  stole  a  rod  of  railroad,  or  pocketed  a  switch. 
But  will  the  great  corporation  ever  put  him  upon 
the  retired  list,  and  pension  him?  And  yet  some 

166 


JUST   AND    GENEROUS.  167 

people  seem  to  think  well  of  faithfulness,  and  several 
eulogies  in  prose  and  verse  have  been  pronounced 
upon  honesty  by  men  who  would  "  bear  watching " 
themselves. 

STEALING. 

Honesty  is  a  respectable  virtue,  but  it  is  prodigious 
ly  homely.  If  a  man  practices  it  but  little,  he  praises 
it  a  great  deal,  and  so  does  his  duty  by  it  as  a  sort 
of  poor  relation.  Agur  was  afraid  to  be  poor,  and 
he  did  not  dare  to  be  rich.  He  feared  he  should 
swear  in  the  one  case  and  steal  in  the  other.  lie 
was  a  timid  man,  was  Agur.  People  have  grown 
braver  since  his  time.  There  are  several  courageous 
men  in  Washington.  Now  and  then  there  is  a  lion 
among  them,  and  that's  what  he  does.  Lie  on  and 
steal  on  go  in  couples.  It  is  a  horrible  pun,  but  it 
is  good  enough  for  the  sirbject.  If  Agur  had  been 
an  Indian,  and  his  prayer  had  been  answered,  some 
of  them  would  have  made  off  with  the  answer  and 
left  him  to  pray  again.  They  would  have  made  a 
sort  of  trap  of  him,  to  catch  answers  for  them  to 
steal !  Stealing  is  never  respectable  unless  it  is  atro 
cious.  When  the  depredation  is  so  large  that  twenty 
per  cent  of  it  will  establish  his  innocence,  the  man 
is  a  success.  Nearly  everybody  steals  something,  even 
if  it  is  only  a  march  or  a  glance.  What  a  choir  it 
would  be,  if  all  who  could  sing  it  with  the  spirit, 
should  join  in  on  the  first  half  line  of  that  familiar 
hymn,  and  stop  definitely  where  it  is  dangerous  to 

halt  a  second: 

" I  love  to  steal!  " 


168  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

FAIRS. 

The  average  fair  for  the  sale  of  .worthless  articles 
for  noble  causes  is  a  place  where  you  are  robbed  by 
your  own  consent,  and  smiled  on  by  the  banditti. 
Yon  pay  a  dollar  for  a  pen-wiper,  not  because  a  young 
Kickapoo  lacks  a  blanket,  or  the  pulpit  a  cushion, 
but  because  the  lady  who  halts  you  in  the  highway 

*/  tf  D  •/ 

of  Vanity  Fair  has  invested  a  dime  in  it,  and  chal 
lenges  you  to  make  it  a  dollar,  or  -  — .  Well,  you 
"  stand  and  deliver."  Somebody  gives  ten  cents  in 
the  disguise  of  a  woolen  heart,  to  be  pounced  upon 
by  steel  pens,  as  that  old  Greek's  was  by  vultures, 
and  asks  you  to  give  ninety.  This  is  the  unpopular 
side  of  the  question,  but  I  submit  that  I  have  not 
left  the  subject.  Why  should  a  fair  do  for  a  good 
sake  what  an  honorable  merchant  could  not  do  for 
any  sake?  Is  it  fair? 

I  met  a  suitable  motive  for  a  small  fair  last  Sun 
day.  It  was  a  boy  that  looked  as  if  his  clothes  had 
been  torn  to  pieces  by  tigers  in  the  interest  of  tailors 
out  of  business.  They  were  so  thoroughly  ventilated 
that  their  natural  home  was  the  rag-bag,  and  yet  he 
contrived  to  keep  them  flapping  about  him  as  a  sleight- 
of-hand  fellow  keeps  a  half  dozen  balls  going  up  and 
coming  down  and  never  touching  ground.  He  was 
barefooted,  and  his  hair  grew  out  of  the  chinks  in 
his  hat.  That  was  his  best  suit,  except  the  tights 
he  was  born  in.  Whenever  a  well-dressed  lad  came 
within  contrasting  distance,  his  tattered  decency  went 
into  a  more  dismal  eclipse  than  ever.  Now,  he  wants 


JUST   AND    GENEROUS.  169 

a  fair,  and  there  are  more  of  him, 'and  girls  to  match. 
Suppose  Dorcas  should  make  garments  and  have  a 
fair,  and  smile  people  into  buying  at  honest  prices, 
and  then  give  tatterdemalion  the  Sunday  suit  and 
the  new  frock,  and  be  rewarded  by  tatterdemalion's 
wonder  and  delight,  and  have  the  profits  besides,  for 
the  aisle  carpet,  the  pulpit  cushion,  or  "  India's  coral 
strand."  And  then  you  have  given  the  boy  a  moral 
jog,  as  well  as  a  braided  jacket,  for  anybody  is  apt 
to  behave  better  in  good  clothes.  There  is  many  a 
man  who  cannot  conduct  himself  like  a  Christian  sim 
ply  because  he  is  dressed  like  a  beggar. 

THE    ART    OF    GIVING. 

The  Golden  Kule  is  a  section  of  "  the  higher  law." 
It  requires  more  than  a  spirit  of  obedience  to  obey  it. 
"  Do  unto  others  as  ye  would  they  should  do  unto 
you."  That  is  all  of  it  —  easily  read,  but  not  easily 
done.  It  implies  the  possession  of  some  imagination, 
but  there  are  men  who  are  not  proprietors  of  a  par 
ticle.  To  step  out  of  yourself  and  be  somebody  else, 
think  the  whole  matter  over,  and  then  step  quietly 
back  again  —  all  this  is  involved  in  it.  But  did  you 
ever  hear  a  man  thank  the  Lord  for  his  imagination, 
or  pray  for  a  little  more?  He  sometimes  names  the 
dinner  he  is  about  to  eat,  but  he  gives  imagination  the 
go-by.  He  has  no  idea  that  he  needs  any,  and  asso 
ciates  it  with  short  lines  that  trot,  amble  or  gallop, 
as  the  gait  happens  to  be  —  short  lines,  with  a  capi 
tal  letter  at  one  end,  and  a  capital  jingle  at  the  other, 


170  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

tricked  out,  as  it  'were,  with  "  bells  on  their  toes." 
It  is  a  costly  rule,  and  therefore  golden.  It  costs  a 
thoughtful  self-sacrifice,  for  which  nobody  will  com 
mend  you.  Now  a  just  or  a  generous  act  committed 
in  a  moment  of  enthusiasm,  when  a  man  shies  a  plump 
pocket-book  at  an  object,  in  a  sort  of  Fourth-of-July 
fervor,  is  a  very  different  thing  from  that  same  act 
performed  after  deliberate  premeditation.  It  means 
more,  for  it  is  significant  of  the  man.  The  one  is  a 
principle,  the  other  an  impulse.  Generosity  is  a  con 
tagious  disease,  and  is  always  most  violent  in  great 
crowds.  Men  have  thus  won,  in  the  heat  of  the  mo 
ment,  the  reputation  of  being  munificent,  who  directly 
set  about  cheating  somebody  to  supply  the  deficiency. 

THE    USES    OF    IMAGINATION. 

Most  men  lack  imagination.  You  never  saw  a 
person  yet  who  did  not  volunteer  the  information, 
that  should  he  come  into  a  liberal  fortune,  of  which 
there  was  no  probability,  he  would  give  you  at  least 
ten  per  cent,  out  of  hand, —  ten  thousand  on  a  hun 
dred  thousand,  and  if  a  million,  then  the  cool  hundred ! 
And  you  try  to  believe  he  would  do  it,  and  you  call 
him  a  generous  fellow,  and  he  returns  the  compliment 
when,  in  like  manner,  you  bestow  a  few  thousands 
upon  him.  But  such  men  have  no  imagination.  They 
cannot  put  themselves  in  the  rich  man's  place,  or  if  at 
all,  so  badly  damaged  in  the  transportation  that  they 
do  not  know  themselves  when  they  get  there.  Be 
nevolence  is  an  easy  virtue,  but  beneficence  is  quite 
another  thing. 


JUST    AND    GENEROUS.  171 

Giving  "  blesses  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes  " 
is  Shakespeare,  but  not  absolute  truth.  If  the  gift 
costs  the  giver  a  temporary  privation  or  an  extra  ef 
fort  ;  if  he  accompanies  the  gift  and  sees  it  actually 
appropriated,  and  the  comfort  and  gratitude  and  hap 
piness  it  brings ;  or  if  he  has  imagination  enough  to 
follow  it  to  its  destination,  and  see  with  his  eyes  shut 
all  he  would  see  if  actually  present,  then  indeed  the 
act  "  blesses  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes."  The 
art  of  giving  is  one  of  the  fine  arts,  and  not  well  un 
derstood.  You  have  met  the  lady  who  embroiders 
beautiful  tidies  for  the  poor,  when  they  all  sit  upon 
stools,  and  elegant  little  cloaks  for  children  who  have 
nothing  to  wear  when  they  get  them.  It  resembles 
the  thoughtful  kindness  of  her  who  sends  a  tailor's 
goose  for  their  Christmas  dinner,  or  skates  and  a  buf 
falo-robe  to  a  Polynesian. 

It  is  a  standing  wonder  that  murderers  on  execu 
tion  eve  sleep  soundly,  and  that,  in  most  instances, 
they  go  to  their  death  with  unfaltering  and  sometimes 
unassisted  steps.  They  are  like  Pope's  lamb  in  one 
thing : 

"The  lamb  thy  riot  dooms  to  bleed  to-day, 
Had  he  thy  reason,  would  he  skip  and  play!  " 

It  is  a  lack  of  sense  in  the  lamb,  and  of  imagination 
in  the  criminal.  He  never  mentally  rehearses  the 
catastrophe  or  the  crime,  and  thinks  deliberately 
through  the  terrible  details.  If  he  did,  and  when  he 
does,  his  strength  always  departs  from  him.  Eugene 
Aram  was  a  man  of  imagination.  He  committed  the 


172  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

murder  over  and  over,  and  death  to  him  was  a  com 
fort. 

The  woman  that  always  sees  things  with  her  eyes 
shut  will  take  a  table  laden  with  flowers,  and  see  the 
room  decorated  with  them  without  touching  a  bud ; 
and  then,  before  you  know  it,  make  the  apartment  a 
beautiful  picture.  So  with  furniture  and  adornings. 
Tumble  the  whole  into  the  middle  of  the  floor,  and 
she  will  see  them  all  out  of  chaos  into  a  fitness  of  po 
sition  that  could  not  be  improved  with  a  month's 
thinking,  and  not  lay  a  hand  on  them  at  all.  It  is 
not  taste  alone  that  inspires  her.  It  is  imagination 
also. 

There  are  other  women  who  keep  things  revolving 
like  the  bits  of  broken  glass  in  a  kaleidoscope.  Beds, 
bureaus,  chairs  and  mirrors  go  round  and  round 
like  the  broom  in  the  riddle,  though  they  do  not 
"pop  behind  the  door,"  but  it  would  not  matter  if 
they  did.  They  are  the  women  that  put  china  cats 
on  the  rnantlepiece  face  to  face,  and  lay  the  show-books 
like  spokes  of  wheels  on  the  center-table,  and  back 
every  chair  up  squarely  against  the  wall,  and  put  one 
ostrich  feather  over  the  looking-glass  so,  /,  and  an 
other  ostrich  feather  over  the  looking-glass  so,  \,  that 
the  combined  effect  may  be  thus,  X,  and  so  balance 
everything  that  the  room  resembles  a  donkey  between 
two  panniers,  or  a  country  doctor's  saddle-bags,  or  any 
other  thing  that  is  distressingly  symmetrical.  These 
are  the  people  who  want  everything  to  "  compare" 
whatever  that  may  mean. 


CHAPTER    XXII. 

STITCHING   LANDSCAPES. 

DISTANCE,  with  nothing  swift  to  conquer  it, 
renders  the  impressive  grouping  of  geograph 
ical  facts  almost  impossible.  The  world  lies  about 
in  loose  leaves.  We  pick  up  one  here  and  there,  but 
it  is  only  when  the  locomotive  whips  through  the 
miles  like  a  cambric  needle  along  a  hem,  and  stitches 
those  leaves  together  in  a  book  we  can  have  at  once 
under  our  eyes,  that  such  facts  grow  eloquent.  Take, 
some  spring  day,  at  Chicago,  an  express  needle  on 
the  Lake  Shore  and  Michigan  Southern,  which  is  the 
locomotive.  You  cling  to  the  thread,  which  is  the 
train,  and  within  twenty  hours  you  may  see  men 
plowing  the  iields  for  corn,  planting  corn,  hoeing  corn, 
the  three  eras  in  the  work  grouped  upon  one  illus 
trated  page.  You  can  see  lilacs  in  leaf,  lilacs  in 
bud,  lilacs  in  blow,  as  you  cross  line  after  line  of 
longitude  as  a  boy  ticks  with  a  stick  along  the  slats 
of  a  picket  fence.  You  feel  as  if  you  were  reading 
a  chapter  of  prophecy  backward. 

Those  September  days,  broad,  bright  and  round 
—  the  weather  that  "  makes  corn,"  as  farmers  say  — 
I  came  east  over  the  New  York  Central.  It  was 

173 


174  SUMMER-SAVGUY. 

hot  and  dusty  along  the  track,  but  the  world  was 
not  dusty,  and  the  green  fields  and  woods  looked 
cool.  The  most  African  and  smothering  thing  I  saw 
was  a  man  riding  upon  the  yellow  road  that  danced 
up  and  down  with  the  heat,  in  a  "devil's-hornpipe " 
sort  of  way,  perched  on  a  load  of  fleeces;  the  sug 
gestion  of  woolen  clothes,  oily  wool  and  muttonish 
odor  all  simmering  together,  with  a  red-faced  man 
in  a  narrow  hat-brim,  like  a  house  without  a  cornice, 
frying  in  the  middle  of  the  mess,  made  thoughts  as 
hot  as  a  canal-boat  kitchen  in  dog-days.  Association 
mercifully  helps  you  in  such  a  case,  and  you  think 
of  ice  tinkling  in  tumblers,  and  cool  nooks  in  the 
wroods,  and  feel  refreshed.  I  glanced  out  of  the  win 
dow  after  a  look  at  that  man  mounted  upon  sheep's 
jackets,  saw  a  girl  under  a  willow  by  a  brookside, 
with  her  white  feet  dangling  in  the  running  water 
and  the  shadows  falling  cool  upon  her,  and  I  was 
comforted. 

The  next  minute  a  strong  peppermint  breeze  blew 
into  the  window.  The  fields,  ridged  with  rolls  of 
green,  showed  the  route  of  the  mowers,  and  a  pep 
permint-still  threw  off  its  fragrant  volumes  that  sweet 
ened  the  air  laden  with  coal  smoke,  and  was  far  fresher 
than  cologne.  The  oil,  which  is  a  staple  of  several 
sections  of  western  New  York  —  Lyons  is  one  of  them 
—  is  only  gold  in  disguise,  and  meets  a  ready  European 
sale.  Mint  farming  seems  to  me  pleasant,  though  less 
emotional  than  onion-raising,  and  kinder  to  the  spinal 
column. 


STITCHING    LANDSCAPES.  175 

Writing  of  Lyons:  "the  Lady  of  Lyons"  came 
on  board  —  she  and  two  friends.  They  may  not  be 
residents  of  that  excellent  town.  They  were  of  the 
species  called  chatterers.  Taking  seats  in  front  and 
rear  of  an  inoffensive  and  modest  man,  they  fairly 
surrounded  him,  and  began  to  talk  loud  and  sharp 
as  a  driver's  horn.  They  seemed  to  look  directly 
at  him  as  they  faced  about,  but  their  talk  shot  by 
him,  just  missing  now  his  right  ear  and  now  his 
left.  Then  the  volley  would  be  returned,  and  take 
him  in  the  back.  Then  the  third  lioness,  or  what 
not,  took  diagonal  aim  and  grazed  his  nose.  It  was 
a  triangular  voluble  duel.  The  poor  man  was  be 
wildered.  At  first  he  thought  they  meant  him,  and 
he  looked  this  way  and  that,  as  the  words  flew  like 
shuttle-cocks,  but  he  soon  discovered  that  he  had 
gotten  into  a  rook's  nest.  And  so  they  continued 
talking  around  him,  over  him,  through  him,  making 
him  of  no  more  account  than  a  gate-post.  Chatterers 
are  many.  They  are  not  liable  to  consumption,  neither 
are  the  bellows  of  blacksmiths.  They  are  not  read 
ers  of  Shakespeare.  They  do  not  know  that  a  gentle 
voice  is  "an  excellent  thing  in  woman."  Their  an 
swers  are  not  of  Job's  sort  that  "  turneth  away  wrath." 

NICKNAMES. 

When  people  make  books  and  quote  Shakespeare, 
let  them  not  abridge  the  poacher's  name,  and  end 
such  a  passage  as  u  The  quality  of  mercy  is  not 
strained "  with  Shak.  Think  of  a  pair  of  sentences 


176  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

like  this :  "  Now  is  the  winter  of  onr  discontent 
made  glorious  summer  !  Shak  !  "  Why  not  quote 
the  author  of  "The  Task"  as  Cow,  or  a  line  from 
Titsworth  as  Tit,  or  the  poet  of  Amesbury  as  Whit  ? 
If  the  writer  has  left  himself  no  room  for  anything 
but  a  nickname,  let  him  leave  it  to  the  wits  of  his 
readers  to  ascertain  whether  "  my  name  is  Norval  on 
the  Grampian  hills,"  or  anywhere  else. 

There  is  such  a  miserable  monotony  of  names  given 
to  children,  that  when  there  is  a  spark  of  originality 
it  is  as  pleasant  as  a  ray  of  light  in  a  dull  place.  One 
of  the  best  I  know  of  is  a  composite,  manufactured 
for  a  daughter,  by  an  old  resident  of  Gilboa,  Schoharie 
county,  New  York.  It  was  a  Shakespearean  christen 
ing.  The  father  made  all  his  naming  preparations 
for  a  boy.  Such  things  are  not  safe,  however.  The 
name  he  had  ready  for  the  stranger  was  Romeo.  The 
proposed  owner  arrived.  To  be  sure,  it  came  within 
one  of  being  a  boy,  but  it  was  a  girl !  The  father 
was  not  to  be  balked,  so  he  never  went  out  of  the 
play  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  at  all,  but  he  took  that 
classic  couple  a'nd  he  blended  a  word,  and  he  called 
the  little  blunder  Romiette^  and  she  bears  the  name 
"even  until  this  day." 

We  pass  the  Montezuma  Marshes,  and  the  harvest 
of  rushes  in  tall,  narrow-waisted  bundles,  arid  remem 
ber  the  rush-bottomed  chairs  and  the  rush-lights  of 
the  old  days,  and  them  that  lighted  the  one  and  sat 
upon  the  other.  They  were  the  salt  of  the  earth ; 
and  almost  before  we  were  done  thinking  of  them, 


STITCHING   LANDSCAPES  177 

the  wooden  parallelograms  of  pans,  with  the  salt  show 
ing  white  in  the  sun,  were  at  right  of  ns  and  left  of 
ns,  as  we  passed  the  great  Salt  Licks  of  New  York. 

Out  of  Syracuse,  after  taking  a  stitch  under  the 
canal  through  that  eyelet-hole  of  a  tunnel,  we  whipped 
fifty-four  miles  across  country  after  one  of  those  tem 
perate  engines  that  drink  only  twice  or  so  in  a  hundred 
miles,  to  the  modern  Utica,  that  is  not  "  pent-up " 
except  as  the  president  of  the  New  York  Central  has 
fenced  a  piece  of  it.  Then  keeping  company  with  the 
Mohawk,  we  fly  by  a  million  or  two  of  wild  brooms, 
the  clean  and  yellow  plumage  of  the  broom-corn 
sweeping  the  sun-bright  air,  that  shall  by-and-by  be 
girded  into  besoms  for  kitchen  floors  and  whisks  for 
garments,  and  be  soiled  and  worn  out  in  less  time 
than  it  took  them  to  grow.  Those  acres  of  Mohawk 
levels  bear  all  the  poetry  there  is  about  "  Buy  a 
Broom  ! "  Then  the  flat  Mohawk  gets  up  a  little  at 
its  old  battle-place,  Little  Falls,  where  it  had,  some 
day,  a  desperate  fight  with  rocks,  that  came  finally 
off  the  worse  for  wear. 

At  Schenectady  the  cars  are  reinforced  by  a  crowd 
of  human  miscellany.  Some  Dutchmen,  built  like 
the  churns  of  their  foremothers,  broad  at  the  base 
and  tapering  out  at  the  top ;  some  specimens  of  the 
tribe  of  Saratoga  accompanying  the  trunks  they  had 
been  living  in  ;  some  school-girls  loaded  with  log- 
chains  in  ebony  and  gold,  just  to  help  the  attraction 
of  gravitation  a  little ;  last  and  worst,  the  man  and 
woman  that  open  the  window  ahead  of  you,  and  let 


178  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

in  upon  you  the  storm  of  smoke,  cinders  and  dust, 
while  they  escape  the  tempest  and  are  comfortable. 
You  shade  your  eyes  with  your  hand.  You  cease  to 
see  the  bright  world  going  the  other  way.  You  catch 
a  cinder  in  your  ear.  You  breathe  smoke.  You  are 
a  dirt-eater.  At  last  an  angel  of  a  cinder  gets  into 
that  woman's  eye,  and  she  weeps  for  the  cinder  if 
not  for  the  sin.  Down  comes  the  window,  and  you 
betake  yourself  to  breathing  a  few  cubic  feet  of  at 
mospheric  air,  damaged,  to  be  sure,  but  then  no  ash 
man  would  pay  as  much  for  it  as  he  might  for  the 
article  you  had  just  done  with. 

The  train  stitches  a  few  of  the  streets  of  Albany 
together, — Albany,  \vhere,  according  to  the  old  chron 
icler,  the  inhabitants  once  stood  "  with  their  gable- 
ends  to  the  street,"  and  we  found  the  Hudson  River 
train  in  harness  awaiting  us.  The  River  trains  always 
remind  me  of  blooded  -horses,  rather  lean  and  not 
w^ell  groomed.  Compared  with  their  western  kindred 
they  are  dusty  and  plebeian-looking  things,  but  they 
can  make  time.  I  like  all  brakemen,  especially  air- 
brakemen.  They  are  live  brakemen  on  the  Hudson,, 
but  they  fail  in  articulation.  Their  words  are  like 
the  tails  of  the  Manx  cats  —  all  brought  to  premature 
ends.  One  of  them  opened  the  car  door  before  the 
wheels  had  done  rumbling,  and  said,  "Alas,  poor ! " 
In  a  few  minutes  he  opened  it  again,  and  flung 
through  the  crack,  "  Yorick ! "  And  what  he  said 
in  the  two  spasms  was  straight  from  Hamlet,  "Alas, 
poor  Yorick ! "  Consulting  my  guide,  I  found  that 


STITCHING    LANDSCAPES.  179 

"Alas,  poor"  was  brakemanese  for  Castleton,  and  that 
"  Yorick  "  meant  Schodack.  He  Lad  a  way,  too,  when 
a  name  was  too  long,  of  catching  it  in  the  door  and 
making  an  insect  of  it.  Thus  lie  gave  "  Livingston  " 

a  vicions  pinch  thus:       Liviston!       "Liviston!"     It  was 

a  cheap  way  of  getting  at  it,  and  saved  breath,  but 
then  nobody  but  a  scholar  could  tell  what  he  meant. 
Hudson  aould  not  have  left  his  name  to  a  finer 
thing  than  that  splendid  river.  There  it  lay  glassy  in 
the  sun,  cities  and  villages  sitting  upon  the  banks  to 
watch  it ;  mountains  in  blue  cloaks  keeping  everlast 
ing  ward ;  steamers  plying  in  their  direct  fashion  to 
and  fro;  winged  craft  zigzagging  up  the  river  and 
feeling  for  wind  with  slanting  canvas  palms,  or  grasp 
ing  the  breeze  with  a  square  hold  as  they  swept  down 
toward  New  York ;  walls,  battlements,  towers,  that  no 
man  bnilded.  Talk  of  "  sermons  in  stones."  0  Shakes 
peare  ! —  but  what  are  your  lithoidal  preachers  to  the 
shrieking  dervishes  of  traffic  they  have  made  of  cliif 
and  rock  all  along  the  river?  "Plantation  Bitters  — 
S.  T.  1860  X!"  "Pills!"  "Powders!"  "Ready 
Relief!"  cry  out  at  you  in  great  letters  on  every  side. 
They  are  worse  than  the  Hebrew  highwaymen  of  the 
old  Bowery ;  worse  than  Italian  bandits.  They  make 
a  terror  of  the  landscape.  But  the  worst  and  most 
impudent  of  all  are  those  huge,  bilious,  yellow  letters 
basking  on  the  rocks  like  rattlesnakes  in  the  sun, 
within  sight  of  the  cars, — "  GARGLING  OIL  !  "  Is  it 
poison?  Will  it  strangle  the  proprietor?  Will  twelve 


180  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

bottles  kill  him  scientifically,  and  make  a  sardine  of 
him?  It  is  worth  trying,  and  if  successful,  let  the 
rocky  faces  of  nature  along  the  Hudson  be  washed 
clean  of  the  oleaginous  defilement.  One  of  that  man's 
grandfathers  must  have  been  a  banker  in  the  Temple 
when  that  writ  of  ejectment  was  served.  "Gargling 
Oil,"  indeed ! 


CHAPTEE  XXIII. 

THE  COUNTRY  BALL-ROOM. 

WAS  there  a  troop  of  strolling  players?  That 
ball-room  was  the  scene  of  their  histrionic 
achievements.  Did  old  Braham,  the  sweet  singer  of 
English  ballads, — who,  as  the  frogs  piped  through  the 
reigns  of  all  the  Pharaohs,  sang  through  the  reigns 
of  several  British  lions,  not  to  say  lionesses,  arid  then 
at  seventy  had  a  voice  as  flexible  as  a  girl's, —  did  he 
give  them  an  evening  of  Island  melody  till  the  night 
ingales  and  the  larks  seemed  singing  at  once  ?  That 
ball-room  was  the  music-box  for  the  minstrelsy.  One 
day  there  came  a  hungry-looking  man, —  he  came  from 
Hungary, —  and  brought  a  sort  of  harp  with  him,  out 
of  whose  strings  he  pulled  the  battle  of  Waterloo; 
guns  and  groans,  battle-cheer  and  rallying  cry,  drums 
and  bugles,  wailing  and  sobbing,  dirge  and  anthem, 
and  then,  last  and  best,  the  song  of  peace.  I  do  not 
remember  his  name,  and  could  not  spell  it  if  I  did, 
but  he  was  a  wonderful  artist,  and  he  stood  at  one  end 
of  the  low-ceiled  ball-room,  and  shut  his  eyes  and 
touched  those  strings  and  bent  a  listening  ear,  as  if 
he  had  never  heard  it  before  in  his  life,  and  we  all 
sat  in  rows  within  range  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo ! 

181 


182  SUMMEK-SAVOltY. 

You  should  have  seen  that  ball-room  on  a  Fourth 
of  July  night,  when  it  was  trimmed  with  asparagus, 
fresh  flowers,  and  a  national  flag,  and  lighted  with 
lamps  whose  oil  came  "  round  the  Horn "  from  the 
Pacific;  when  the  "grand  marshal  of  the  day,"  and 
general  of  militia  likewise,  led  off  the  dance,  a  double- 
handful  of  gold  bullion  shining  upon  his  shoulders, 
and  the  fringed  ends  of  his  sash  of  crimson  silk  falling 
to  his  knee ;  when  men  in  blue  coats  with  taper  tails 
and  gilded  buttons,  and  dames  in  caps  that  flared  like 
full-blown  hollyhocks,  moved  through  the  graceful 
measure  of  the  minuet  with  the  coupee,  the  high  step 
and  the  balance,  amid  an  atmosphere  of  lavender, 
cologne  and  lamp-smoke ;  when  the  air  was  dizzy  with 
Virginia  reels,  and  as  full  of  "Money  Musk"  as  a 
Russian  lady's  handkerchief,  and  everything  was 
aswing  with  contra-dances  and  gay  with  quadrilles. 
Not  a  bearded  face  among  the  men,  though  there  was 
but  one  barber  in  the  village,  and  Tie  shaved  notes  and 
never  left  a  whisker! 

Writing  of  the  general :  the  glitter  and  tinsel  of 
wrar's  livery  is  not  altogether  like  Goldsmith's  broken 
china,  "kept  for  show,"  and  it  lessens  the  vanity  of 
the  thing  a  little  when  we  think  what  the  epaulet  was 
really  for, —  not  the  modern  badge  with  its  modest 
hint  of  rank,  that  would  not  turn  the  thrust  of  a  vi- 
*cious  musquito,  but  the  old-fashioned  yellow-ringleted 
shoulder-crest,  a  sort  of  mop  without  a  handle,  that 
could  dull  the  downward  stroke  of  sword  or  saber, 
and  save  an  arm  sometimes.  So  with  the  sash.  Un- 


THE    COUNTRY    BALL-ROOM.  183 

wound  from  the  waist  of  the  wounded  owner,  the 
elastic  web  of  silk  lengthened  and  widened,  and  there 
you  had  the  hammock  whereon  the  soldier  could  be 
borne  away. 

Then  you  recall  some  other  night  when,  in  cutters 
by  twos,  in  sleighs  by  clusters,  the  young  men  and 
maidens  from  the  country  round  about,  thronged  in 
for  a  dance  to  the  old  ball-room,  and  what  a  medley 
it  was  of  morocco  shoes,  "  pumps,"  red,  white  and 
blue,  cheeks,  dresses,  and  ribbons,  palpitation,  poma 
tum,  peppermint,  and  happiness,  as  bright  as  a  bed  of 
tulips.  And  weddings  came  of  the  dancings,  and 
they  paired  off  for  the  long  promenade.  And  the 
names  of  some  of  them  are  on  gray  slabs  of  stone, 
and  some  are  forgotten  altogether.  Did  you  ever  see 
a  rainbow  die?  —  the  sort  of  architecture  that  must  be 
repaired  every  second,  or  it  will  crumble  into  atoms 
of  colorless  rain  ?  And  so  the  drops  one  by  one  fall 
into  their  places,  the  arch  changing  each  instant  and 
always  the  same,  until  the  rain  comes  slow  and  the 
tints  grow  faint  and  the  bow  goes  out,  and  the  cloud 
is  as  bare  as  if  God  had  never  put  a  seal  to  the  Cove- 
•>»e^x; 

A] 

The  tavern  dining-room  on  that  old  Fourth  was 
the  scene  of  high  festivity.  The  roast  pig,  with  a 
sprig  of  parsley  in  his  mouth,  graced  the  head  of  the 
board.  He  was  as  much  a  belonging  of  "the  day  we 
celebrate  "  as  the  inedible  poultry  of  the  flag.  It  was 


184  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

pig  and  patriotism.  Before  that  pig  sat  the  president 
of  the  day,  blossomed  out,  as  to  his  broad  bosom  with 
snowy  ruffles,  in  vest  of  buff  and  coat  of  blue,  and 
his  legs  being  under  the  table  his  pantaloons  are  out 
of  sight.  On  either  hand  is  an  old  soldier  of  the 
Revolution,  as  genuine  as  a  flint-lock :  somebody  who 
had  seen  Washington,  and  was  a  captain  ;  somebody 
who  had  fought  at  Bennington,  and  was  a  private. 
And  after  a  while  came  the  stately  old  toasts,  un 
changeable  as  the  Book  of  Genesis,  that  were  drank 
to  the  President  and  the  People,  the  Army,  the  Navy, 
the  old  Soldiers,  the  Ladies,  and  the  Day.  Then  they 
all  stood  up,  and  drank  in  silence  to  the  Dead.  After 
the  immemorial  thirteen,  they  toasted  each  other  and 
"  the  rest  of  mankind,"  and  what  with  the  heat  of  the 
day,  the  dinner  and  the  toasting,  they  grew  warm, 
while  the  anvil  in  the  street  grew  hot,  and  a  gun  that 
had  bellowed  at  Sacket's  Harbor  gave  tongue,  and 
the  air  was  full  of  smoke  arid  glory  and  Seventy-Six, 
—  Seventy-Six,  that  had  not  then  sunk  so  far  below 
the  horizon  that  the  twilight  splendors  of  the  first 
Fourth  of  July  that  was  thought  worth  mentioning, 
were  not  refracted  still.  Possibly  that  dinner  was 
fifty  cents.  Probably  it  was  free.  Surely  it  was 
grand ! 

Out  in  front  of  the  door  was  a  grizzly  drummer 
with   his  drum,  who  had   beaten   the  long  roll  some 
where,  because   Baron    Steuben    or   General    Stark  — 
Molly's  husband  —  told  him  to;  and  a  fifer  to  match, 
who  whistled  away  like  a  blackbird  in  a  hedge,  and 


THE   COUNTRY   BALL-KOOM.  185 

the  boys  kept  step  to  the  measure,  and  everybody 
marked  time  with  head  or  toe  or  cane,  and  so  all 
mentally  marched  back  fifty  years,  when  the  music 
meant  business.  But  the  fife  was  given  to  grand 
children  for  a  plaything,  and  Time  slashed  a  hole  in 
the  drum  with  a  careless  cut  of  his  scythe,  and  the 
mice  gnawed  off  the  snare,  and  there  are  two  tablets, 
each  with  a  stone  willow  thereon,  and  both  tablets 
cry  out  with  one  voice:  "A  Patriot  of  the  Revolu 
tion."  Sic  transit  gloria  mundi  ad  immortalitatem 
—  So  passes  the  glory  of  the  world  to  immortality. 
The  Fourth  of  July  has  worn  on  into  the  deep  night. 
The  fifth  will  soon  dawn.  The  guests  are  gone.  The 
lights  are  out.  The  old  inn  is  silent  as  an  empty 
church.  And  so  I  say  to  the  memory  of  the  old  day, 
"Out!  brief  candle!" 

THE    FLAG    REMEMBERED. 

Forty  years  ago  flags  were  fewer,  and  so,  to  be 
sure,  were  folks.  The  pagans  that  dwelt  in  villages 
seldom  saw  any  except  at  "General  Training"  and 
on  the  Fourth  of  July,  and  on  those  occasions  their 
name  was  not  legion.  Not  then,  as  now,  did  each 
omnibus  horse  sport  a  little  flag  between  his  ears  upon 
gala  days.  It  used  to  be  that  a  boy's  first  sight  of 
the  glorious  standard  almost  took  his  breath  away. 
A  boy's  tenth-wave  passion  is  for  martial  "  pomp  and 
circumstance,"  provided  he  has  ever  seen  any.  Boys 
are  monkeys.  So  much  for  Darwin ! 

Your  first   sword  was   forged  from  a   shingle  and 

8* 


186  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

tipped  with  the  blood  of  the  belligerent  strawberry. 
Your  first  flag  was  made  of  a  yard  square  of  cotton 
cloth,  that  mayhap  had  helped  to  do  duty  upon  a 
trundle-bed,  and  was  hemmed  by  a  mother's  fingers. 
Upon  it  was  tethered  with  needle  and  thread  an  eagle 
of  blue  broadcloth.  That  eagle  was. hatched  by  the 
same  loving  hands  and  the  help  of  a  pair  of  shears. 
It  was  a  fowl  of  such  proportions  as  Agassiz  would 
have  wondered  over.  Beside  it  were  thirteen  stars 
of  blue  upon  a  cotton-white  heaven  —  all  "  deeply, 
darkly,  beautifully  blue,"  but  just  the  thing  that 
should  have  been  cerulean.  It  was  a  defiant  flag, 
for  it  bleached  out  the  sky  and  put  all  the  color  in 
bird  and  stars.  A  disabled  broom  furnished  the  staff', 
and  altogether  it  was  the  ensign  of  no  State  in  the 
Union  but  the  State  of  Perfect  Happiness.  Long 
ago,  the  moths  devoured  the  eagle  and  the  mice  ate 
up  the  flag,  and  the  staff  turned  into  legs  for  a  milk- 
ing-stool,  but  the  memory  and  the  glory  remain  "even 
until  this  day." 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


A  THANKSGIVING-DAY  FLIGHT. 

BY  invitation  I  rode  hundreds  of  miles  to  reach 
New  York,  for  the  sake  of  flying  back  to  Chi 
cago  by  the  Fast  White  Mail  when  such  things  were. 
That  is  all  there  was  of  it.  Three  o'clock  Thanks 
giving  morning  found  me  riding  up  Broadway  to  the 
Grand  Central  Depot. 

The  city  had  fallen  asleep  in  her  diamonds  the 
night  before, —  the  careless,  magnificent  creature! 
Chains  of  brilliants  and  necklaces  of  light  and  dou 
ble  rows  of  jewelry  down  every  street,  like  double 
rows  of  gems  along  a  Persian  seam,  fairly  clothed 
her"  with  trinkets  as  with  a  garment.  She  is  grand 
when  she  goes  to  bed  as  a  princess  going  to  Court. 
But  New  York  sleeps  with  one  eye  open.  The  mantle 
of  slumber  is  as  short  as  a  Scotch  kilt,  and  the  cloak 
of  forgetfulness  shrinks  to  a  jacket  when  she  puts  it 
on.  Nowhere  else- in  America  is  a  man  reduced  from 
an  integer  to  a  pitiful  vulgar  fraction  as  he  is  in 
New  York.  He  sees  himself  through  the  other  end 
of  the  glass;  he  shrivels  like  a  last  year's  filbert; 
he  wonders  the  census-taker  cares  to  reckon  him  in, 
the  three-ninths  of  a  man  that  he  has  become.  That 


187 


188  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

feeling  of  fragmentary  humanity  and  loneliness  proves", 
without  the  help  of  mathematics,  that  a  mart  has 
achieved  genuine  greatness.  Boston  is  Athenian  ;  Bal 
timore  is  monumental ;  Philadelphia  is  centennial ; 
Chicago  is  wonderful,  but  New  York  is  NEW  YORK. 


Not  a  minute  too  soon,  we  found  the  White  Mail 
just  ready  to  leave.  It  had  an  unreal,  a  spectral  look 
in  the  flicker  of  the  lamps,  and  so  had  the  white 
four-in-hand,  attached  to  the  ponderous  wagon,  whence 
the  last  of  the  mail-bags  were  tumbling  into  the  cars. 
It  was  a  scene  for  lamplight  and  starlight  rather  than 
for  broad  day.  Number  84,  the  engineer  in  the  saddle, 
was  ready  to  run,  and,  as  the  clock  marked  fifteen 
minutes  past  four,  the  conductor  gave  the  word  "  go," 
and  we  went.  The  crew  had  come  aboard,  the  en 
gine  had  made  ready,  the  driver  had  taken  aim,  and 
the  conductor  said  "  lire ! "  That  was  how  it  was. 
There  were  four  cars,  four  gallant  governors  in  line,— 
their  Excellencies  Hendricks,  Fairchild,  Beveridge  and 
Buckingham, —  brave  in  their  white,  orange  and  gold, 
blazoned  with  shielded  eagles,  and  gay  to  look  at  as 
so  many  waiting  lords  in  the  king's  livery.  Ah ! 
it  was  a  Jewell  of  a  train. 

And  the  first  thing  it  did  was  to  plunge  ignobly 
into  a  hole  two  miles  long,  burrow  like  a  gopher, 
and  jar  away  under  the  city  streets  that  ribbed  it 
overhead  like  the  bars  of  a  gridiron.  And  the  next 
thing  it  did  was  to  dash  across  Harlem  river,  and 


A  TMAKKSGIVIKG-DAY  FLIGHT.  189 

tnake  the  switches  snap  like  flint-locks  in  a  skirmish, 
and  set  the  lamp-posts  about  as  near  as  a  row  of  wax 
lights  on  a  mantelpiece,  and  out  it  dashed  as  if  bound 
for  a  plunge-bath  in  the  Hudson.  But  it  changed 
its  mind  in  a  minute  and  doubled  capes  of  curves, 
and  thundered  under  the  hills,  threw  lights  on  the 
water,  and  glimmers  on  the  rock,  and  glares  on  the 
rail.  It  swung  like  a  cradle  and  shot  like  an  arrow, 
and  whipped  through  the  tunnels  as  if  it  were  stitch 
ing  for  life,  with  Starvation's  ivory  grin  looking  in 
at  the  door.  Figures  started  out  in  the  flash  of  the 
head-light  as  we  rounded  a  promontory,  and  slunk 
back  in  the  darkness  like  guilty  things  as  we  passed. 
The  train  ran  as  light  and  swift,  with  its  thirty-five 
tons  of  mail,  as  a  rejoicing  herald  that  used  to  run 
before  the  king.  It  cleft  the  shadows  that  lay  heaped 
upon  the  track,  as  if  Night  had  disrobed,  left  its 
clothes  upon  the  rails,  and  gone  into  the  river  to 
swim ;  ghosts  of  precipices  and  doubles  of  trees  and 
mantles  of  mountains.  The  furnace  door  played  like 
a  fan  in  a  fever.  The  clouds  above  the  engine  turned 
white  and  crimson  and  black  every  two  minutes.  It 
was  a  medley  of  sunsets  and  midnights.  It  seemed 
like  flying,  and  had  we  heard  the  flap  of  a  pair  of 
wings  as  big  as  a  mainsail  close  to  our  ears,  and 
the  Governors  had  all  left  the  track  in  a  flock  and 
flown,  not  into  the  ditch,  but  over  the  Palisades  or 
"Wolfert's  Koost,  or  the  Catskills,  or  the  bridge  of 
Anthony's  nose,  it  would  have  astonished  nobody 
very  much. 


190  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

We  had  strung  a  dozen  villages  as  nimble  girls 
string  beads,  when  day  broke  and  the  sun  touched  up 
the  wavy  sky-line  of  the  mountains,  and  Father  Hud 
son  showed  himself,  icy  at  the  edges  like  the  tips  of 
an  old  man's  ears  and  lingers  in  a  frosty  morning,  but 
traveling  seaward  as  sturdily  as  Sir  Hendrick  saw  him 
many  a  year  ago.  Now  we  caught  one  steamer  with 
the  steady  see-saw  of  her  walking-beam,  and  showed 
her  a  light  pair  of  heels  in  three  seconds;  and  now  we 
met  another  with  a  brood  of  barges  about  her  like  a 
hen  with  a  small  family  of  exaggerated  Bramahs;  and 
now  a  pair  of  schooners  wing  and  wing  like  a  couple 
of  gulls.  The  villages  across  the  river  kept  dressing 
to  the  right,  like  a  row  of  school-children  ranged  for 
a  spelling-match,  as  we  flew.  The  engine  was  inces 
santly  giving  two  little  whistles  to  itself,  as  it  cleft 
hamlet,  highway  and  hill,  and  the  bell  swung  like  a 
pendulum  with  a  tongue  in  it,  and  we  pulled  up  at 
Poughkeepsie.  The  wheels  tolled  along  under  the 
train  at  the  blow  of  the  testing  hammers  before  we 
fairly  halted  ;  five  minutes  and  we  were  away.  It  is 
the  most  penurious  train  on  the  road.  It  puts  eighty 
minutes  into  sixteen  little  packages  for  its  sixteen  halts 
in  a  thousand  miles,  and  it  doles  out  these  five-minute 
nickels  one  at  a  time  along  the  way. 

THE    FLIGHT. 

It  was  a  splendid  day.  The  sun  shone  like  an 
Easter  sun.  It  was  Thanksgiving.  And  to  think 
that  we  were  making  the  transit  of  six  States  before 


A   THANKSGIVING-DAY   FLIGHT.  191 

men  should  begin  to  say,  "  Yesterday  was  Thanks 
giving;  "-—that  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  In 
diana,  Michigan,  Illinois,  should  slip  away  beneath 
the  wheels  like  a  map  of  sovereignties  under  a  nimble 
linger ;  — -  that  we  were  gliding  through  an  atmosphere 
of  live  hundred  thousand  turkeys  done  to  a  golden 
brown  and  lying  like  dead  knights  in  armor,  ready 
for  the  glad  solemnities  of  Thanksgiving,  and  not  so 
much  as  a  "merry-thought"  wherewith  to  bless  our 
selves; —  that  there  we  were,  chasing  a  cup  of  coffee 
across  the  Empire  State,  telegraphing  Utica  from  Al 
bany  and  Syracuse  from  Utica,  and  catching  the  slow- 
footed  Mercury s  before  they  had  delivered  the  mes 
sage; —  calling  for  a  drop  of  Java  or  Mocha  or  "peas, 
beans  and  barley  O,"  through  a  flight  of  two  hundred 
miles,  as  plaintively  as  aguish  Caesar  called  for  drink 
when  he  was  in  Spain  ;  —  that  we  were  to  catch  at 
Buffalo  at  last  and  have  our  small  Thanksgiving;  — 
that  we  were  doing  the  twenty-six  days'  work  of  the 
pioneers  in  as  many  hours;  —  that  we  were  in  effect 
bringing  Chicago  .to  sit  by  the  shore  of  Lake  Erie, 
and  Buffalo  to  the  banks  of  the  Mohawk,  and  Utica 
for  a  neighborly  gossip  with  the  old  city  of  the  Knick 
erbockers  at  tide-water,  setting  sober-going  watches 
in  the  wrong  and  making  them  bear  false  witness 
without  lying. 

GEOGRAPHY    JUMBLED. 

The  train  takes  Holland  in  a  trice  of  hours  and 
captures  the  savages  in  a  trice  more.  It  is  Spuyten 
Duyvil,  Yonkers,  Sing  Sing  and  no  music;  it  is 


192  SUMMEH-SAVOKY. 

Crngers  and  Peekskill,  Fishkill  and  Catskill ;  it  is 
Staatsbnrg,  Rhinebeck,  Germantown,  Stuyvesant,  Ba- 
tavia  and  Amsterdam.  It  flashes  by  the  sturdy  Dutch 
men  a  hundred  years  old,  whose  rugged  walls  shed 
Revolutionary  bullets  and  flint-headed  arrows  as  ducks 
shed  rain. 

It  is  Tribes  Hill  and  Oriskany,  Oneida,  Canastota, 
Canaseraga,  Ohittenango  and  White  Pigeon.  And 
there's  your  poor  Indian  !  It  takes  Rome  before  it 
is  done  with  it,  and  rattles  geography  together  in  a 
hopeless  jumble  in  twenty -six  hours. 


Did  you  ever  see  a  woman  weave,  and  watch  the 
play  of  the  shuttle  to  and  fro  through  the  countless 
threads  and  never  a  tangle  or  catch?  —  to  and  fro, 
here  and  there,  with  a  swing  of  the  bar?  The  Hud 
son  River  Railroad  is  a  loom  mightier  and  busier. 
See  the  sixty  trains  out  of  New  York  flying  hither 
and  yon  and  keeping  the  rails  jarring  night  and  day 
to  the  music.  See  the  scores  of  trains  dashing  out 
of  the  West.  See  them  pulling  into  "the  piece"  all 
along  the  way.  These  are  the  threads.  Then  see 
the  white  shuttle  of  the  Fast  Mail, —  white  that  every 
body  may  know  it, —  flashing  to  and  fro  amid  the 
warp  and  woof  of  trains,  never  colliding  or  blunder 
ing  or  waiting.  New  York  throws  it  with  a  will  in 
the  morning  and  Chicago  sends  it  back  in  the  even 
ing.  Shuttles  meet  and  pass  and  part  with  the  accu 
racy  of  the  stars. 


A    THANKSGIVING-DAY    FLIGHT.  193 

There  is  a  point  on  the  New  York  Central  between 
Batavia  and  a  place-no-place  called  Croft's.  The  Mail 
from  New  York  and  the  Mail  from  Chicago,  nine 
hundred  and  eighty-six  miles  apart,  are  due  there  at 
the  same  moment, —  nineteen  minutes  past  two  p.m. 
We.  westward-bound,  are  careering  at  fifty-six  miles  an 
hour.  We  shall  strike  the  point  on  time.  Will  our 
twrin  from  the  West  be  there  to  meet  us?  Watches 
in  hand  we  look  ahead.  A  cloud  no  bigger  than  a 
man's  hand.  It  might  be  a  fleece  from  Mary's  little 
lamb.  It  grows,  till  it  is  like  a  ship  showing  every 
thing  that  will  draw.  It  is  the  train  !  Two  seven 
teen —  seventeen  and  a  half — eighteen  —  a  quarter  — 
half — three-quarters  —  nineteen!  The  train  is  here, 
is  there,  is  gone !  We  met  on  the  instant.  It  was 
an  aggregate  motion  the  trains  made  of  one  hundred 
and  twelve  miles  an  hour.  It  was  like  brushing  one 
palm  with  the  other  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  A 
man  may  build  the  great  clock  of  Strasburg  that  could 
never  make  a  time-table. 

A    MILE    A    MINUTE  —  HOW    IT    SEEMS. 

Of  a  truth  it  is  a  splendid  day !  Engine  317,  IT. 
S.  Shattuck,  engineer,  awaits  us  at  Buffalo.  He  is  of 
age  on  the  rail,  having  been  an  engineer  his  twenty- 
one  years.  We  climb  into  the  howdah,  and  doesn't 
317  shine  in  her  brazen  harness,  like  the  near  wheel- 
horse  of  Phoebus !  She  has  done  her  mile  in  fifty- 
two  seconds,  and  never  "  turned  a  hair."  The  engi 
neer  is  as  quiet  as  the  keeper  of  a  light-house.  He 


194  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

is  not  noisy.  Engineers  seldom  are.  He  is  reticent. 
He  is  not  a  stage-driver.  He  is  a  gunner.  He  says, 
"I  use  iny  ears  as  much  as  I  do  my  eyes.  I  hear 
every  click  and  clip  of  engine  and  train.  If  there's 
a  jingle  out  of  place  anywhere,  I  can't  help  hearing 
it.  Once  I  could  not  have  heard  it  had  I  tried." 
He  talks  one  way  and  looks  another.  He  has  his 
hand  on  the  iron  bridle,  his  eye  on  the  track,  his 
heart  on  the  West.  He  sees  the  world  bearing  down 
upon  him  like  a  ship  before  a  mighty  wind.  He 
brings  his  engine  down  to  her  steady  work.  The 
day  is  as  calm  as  old  Herbert's  blessed  Sunday,  but 
the  wind  blows  here  in  the  saddle  full  fifty  miles  an 
hour.  A  couple  of  young  hurricanes  are  following 
at  the  heels  of  the  train.  Give  them  a  wide  berth, 
or  they  will  waltz  you  in  upon  the  track  to  the  tune 
of  the  devil's  hornpipe.  We  are  making  a  mile  in 
fifty-nine  seconds,  fifty-eight  seconds,  fifty-six  seconds, 
fifty-four  seconds.  Sheridan's  ride  at  Read's  rhyth 
mic  paces  from  Winchester  to  glory,  "  only  twenty 
miles  away,"  was  a  Sabbath-day's  jog  in  a  decorous 
way. 

The  track  sometimes  lifts  to  the  edge  of  the  sky, 
and  it  doesn't  look  as  if  it  were  a  very  heavy  grade 
to  heaven  either.  The  telegraph  poles  come  together 
like  a  Y,  and  fence  the  track  in  the  distance.  The 
wires  droop  and  swing  and  shorten  up  like  clothes 
lines  to  hang  sheet  lightning  on,  if  you  please !  The 
great  steel  S's  of  curves  glitter  like  silver  in  the  sun. 
The  bell,  shaped  like  the  tall  hats  we  see  in  pictures 


A   THANKSGIVIKG-DAY   FLIGHT.  195 

finishing  up  the  Pilgrims  that  stand  freezing  round 
the  rock  of  Plymouth,  keeps  on  the  swing,  rung  by 
the  tireless  hand  of  steam.  The  engine  talks  to  a 
crossing,  hails  a  station,  screams  at  a  track-man.  The 
little  oscillations  arid  petty  jolts  disappear.  The  thing 
runs  like  a  shaft  in  a  polished  groove.  All  minor 
motions  are  resolved  into  the  one  forward  plunge. 
As  the  rifle-bullet  hurries  round  and  round  and  out 
of  its  spiral  hall  of  steel,  so  speeds  the  train.  It  runs 
as  true  as  the  aim  of  a  dead  shot.  The  steady  still 
ness  is  suspicious.  If  you  think  of  it  and  what  it 
means,  it  tugs  at  your  nerves  and  draws  them  taut 
as  the  little  string  of  a  violin.  It  is  seventy  feet  at 
a  clock-tick,  eighty  feet  at  a  heart-beat,  forty  miles  in 
forty-three  minutes.  It  means  that  a  minute  makes 
a  mile,  when  it  does  not  mean  more.  Fifteen  min 
utes  late  is  twelve  miles  late,  and  a  stern  chase  is  a 
wild  chase. 

A    MAN    HATCHED    AND    RECONSIDERED. 

There's  a  dot  on  the  track  about  the  size  of  a 
Darwinian  primal  egg.  It  begins  to  hatch  !  It  de 
velops  legs  and  arms  and  feet  and  head.  It  is  as 
tall  as  a  pen-holder,  a  walking-stick,  a  man.  It  is  a 
man,  and  the  man  stands  not  "  upon  the  order  of  his 
going,"  but  goes  at  once,  bolts  the  track  and  makes 
for  the  fence.  We  pass  him,  and  behold  he  shuts  up 
like  a  telescope  and  diminishes  by  swift  degrees  and 
rolls  back  into  an  egg,  a  dot,  a  nothing.  The  track 
is  clear  behind  us  for  all  such  animalculae  as  he.  It 
is  as  if  he  had  never  been  hatched  at  all ! 


196  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

The  talk  of  engineer,  fireman,  conductor,  brake- 
man,  is  "  speed."  Watches  are  in  hand,  and  mile- 
posts  read  like  a  book.  No  vain  girl  with  a  pretty 
face  ever  consulted  her  looking-glass  so  often  as  are 
the  time-pieces  on  the  train,  and  it  isn't  the  hour 
hand  they  are  after,  but  the  minutes  and  the  seconds. 
Under  the  wheels  of  a  fifty-six  miler  time  is  ground 
exceeding  small,  and  it  takes  a  finger  as  delicate  as  a 
second  hand  to  pick  it  up.  Speed  has  a  lead  on  it. 
It  is  exhilarating  as  sparkling  Catawba.  It  quickens 
pulses  and  lilts  the  spirits.  It  is  the  very  'antipodes 
of  death,  for  the  swiftest  motion  is  the  intensest  life. 

We  have  done  our  thousand  miles  between  sun 
and  sun,  our  Thanksgiving-day  flight  is  finished,  and 
we  say  to  ourself,  as  we  leap  from  the  train,  with 
some  grateful  feeling  befitting  the  day  we  had  spent 
in  flying, 

Chicago !  and  we  kept  the  track ! 

And  what  have  they  all  done  in  the  twenty-six 
hours?  Scattered  to  the  four  winds,  and  precisely 
where  they  belong,  157,000  papers,  119,420  letters,— 
276,420  pieces  in  all,  and  an  average  of  9,214  to  the 
man, —  the  work  of  thirty-five  men  in  a  round  day! 

Chicago,  six  fifty-five,  twenty-six  hours  from  New 
York,  and  a  cloudy  morning !  The  waiting  trains  are 
in  harness.  It  is  Illinois,  Iowa,  Nebraska,  Wisconsin, 
the  Silver  State,  the  Golden  State,  the  Picket  Post 
of  Civilization.  On  rush  the  tidings.  It  is  Green 
Bay  before  bed-time.  It  is  Dubuque  before  sundown. 
The  old  fifty-eight  hours  from  Boston  to  Burlington 


A   THANKSGIVING-DAY    FLIGHT.  197 

are  forty-five.  The  old  seven  days  to  San  Francisco 
are  fused  into  a  bright  new  six,  and  a  Sabbath  to 
spare !  Where  are  the  people  that  bade  each  other 
good-by,  as  for  a  lasting  farewell,  when  the  mail  was 
chucked  into  the  boot  of  the  Concord  coach  at  Chi 
cago,  and  trod  upon  by  the  driver  and  lurched  away 
to  Galena  for  ninety-six  hours? 

Eloquence  may  be  grand,  but  this  is  grander.  Poet 
ry  may  be  fine,  but  this  is  finer  still.  War  may  be 
glorious,  but  there  is  no  blood  on  the  white  array  of 
the  Governors'  Train.  It  has  swung  through  an  arc 
of  nine  hundred  and  eighty-five  miles.  It  has  trav 
ersed  twenty  cities  with  an  aggregate  population  of 
two  millions.  It  has  flashed  along  a  great  highway 
bordered  with  half  a  million  more  who  are  \vithin 
stone's  throw  or  ear-shot  of  its  lively  wheels.  It  was 
the  pendulum  of  the  new  Centennial  Clock  sweeping 
six  States  at  a  vibration. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 

"RIVERSIDE1'  AND  "LAKESIDE." 

AMERICA  has  a  lake  and  a  river  that  are  classic. 
JL\-  The  one  is  the  Hudson,  and  the  other,  Otsego. 
It'  anybody  thinks  there  should  be  more,  let  him 
make  more,  and  no  man  shall  forbid  him.  Happily 
Washington  Irving  and  Fennimore  Cooper  were  eld 
est  sons,  and  so  heirs  to  whatever  of  literary  name 
and  fame  was  worth  inheriting.  They  had  no  rivals 
and  few  imitators.  They  entered  into  peaceable  pos 
session  when  the  world  was  less  troubled  with  angels 
than  it  now  is, —  the  angels  that  are  incessantly  saying 
"Write!" 

Born  fifty  years  later,  they  would  have  been  anach 
ronisms,  and  might  about  as  well  have  not  been  born 
at  all.  The  world  grows  more  difficult  to  be  caught 
every  day  of  its  life,  but  there  is  a  chance  for  the 
man  who  is  born  too  soon.  The  quick  world  may 
overtake  him  and  honor  him  with  a  monument, 
though  it  has  quite  forgotten  where  he  was  buried. 
That  coroners  can  hold  an  inquest  upon  departed 
merit,  without  having  a  body  to  sit  upon,  is  a  blessed 
thing  for  printers  and  marble-workers  and  everything 
but  the  departed  merit.  Few  are  they  who,  like  Pro 
fessor  Morse,  witness  the  unveiling  of  their  own  statues, 

198 


"RIVERSIDE;"  AND  "LAKESIDE."  199 

In  this,  Cooper  and  Irving  were  alike:  both  loved 
England  filially  —  faithfully.  The  one  bestowed  upon 
her  his  benedictions ;  the  other  was  as  much  an 
Islander  as  he  could  be  in  the  heart  of  a  continent. 
Both  were  insular  in  their  tastes.  They  would  have 
been  contented  with  an  asteroid  if  they  could  have 
taken  the  choicest  of  this  great  lumbering  earth  with 
them ;  if  they  could  have  had  at  command  a  small 
marine  to  carry  their  manuscripts  to  the  mainland. 
They  were  neither  sordid  nor  selfish,  but  then  they 
did  not  like  to  be  jostled. 

It  is  not  long  since  Irving's  Sketch-Book  and 
Cooper's  Leather-Stocking  were  in  everybody's  hand, 
when  "everybody"  meant  less  and  more  than  it  means 
now ;  less,  because  readers  were  fewer ;  more,  because 
the  few  read  as  the  saints  are  charged  to  sing,  "  with 
the  spirit  and  the  understanding  also."  How  Smith 
would  fare  to-day  as  the  author  of  Irving's  Broken 
Heart,  or  what  publisher  would  be  gracious  to  Jones, 
author  of  Cooper's  Pioneers,  is  a  curious  inquiry. 
Whether  the  Ledger,  wherein  Henry  Ward  Beecher 
writes  a  hay-fever  serial,  would  accept  them,  or  yet 
any  magazine  yield  them  a  place  with  The  Luck  of 
Roaring  Camp,  is  not  certain.  Let  us  give  the  men 
of  Lakeside  and  Riverside  the  benefit  of  the  doubt. 

Among  the  ways  of  estimating  literary  fame  are 
the  time-table  and  long  measure.  An  exemplary  dog 
ordinarily  lives  longer  than  a  book.  Twelve  years  is 
a  great  while  in  the  ephemeral  generations  of  print, 
and  the  Methuselahs  are  rare.  A  work  that  can  stand 


200  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

the  ravages  of  a  century,  and  then  come  up  some 
where  in  a  man's  path  like  a  fresh  flower  in  the 
spring,  and  brighten  his  way  and  gladden  his  heart, 
and  with  human  nature  enough  in  it  to  live  another 
hundred,  has  achieved  a  fame  that  men  agree  to  call 
immortality, —  a  sort  of  infant  immortality  in  swad 
dling  bands. 

As  a  rule,  a  popular  writer  appears  greater  and 
grander  at  a  thousand  miles  than  he  does  at  your 
elbow.  He  looms.  The  eagerness  of  people  to  sub 
ject  a  favorite  to  the  damaging  microscope  of  daily 
observation  almost  always  brings  its  own  punishment 
in  one  idol  less  and  more  bits  of  broken  pottery.  The 
paths  of  some,  to-day,  are  as  rough  with  them  as  the 
road  to  Jordan.  Death  and  distance  are  great  illu 
sionists,  and  many  a  man  owes  the  glamour  of  his 
fame  to  one  or  the  other,  and  for  the  same  reason, — 
it  keeps  him  out  of  sight. 

But  why  these  dealings  with  the  dead?  Are  there 
not  livelier,  fresher  themes  going?  The  works  of 
Irving  and  Cooper  have  long  since  taken  their  allot 
ted  places  in  the  world  of  letters.  Brave  in  turkey 
and  gilding  they  are  drawn  up  in  thousands  of  glit 
tering  lines ;  a  little  more  like  Joseph,  perhaps,  with 
the  strange  king  upon  the  throne  who  knew  him 
not;  a  little  more  dust  upon  them,  a  little  oftener, 
than  there  was  twenty  years  ago ;  but  what  matters 
it?  When  the  fine  wines  in  the  cob-webbed  bottles 
come  up  from  the  bin,  there  is  a  brush  with  the  cork 
screw  ready  to  your  hand.  The  amber,  the  crimson, 


"RIVERSIDE"  AND  '-LAKESIDE."  201 

and  the  golden  set  themselves  aright,  and  show  the 
drowned  sunshine  all  the  same.  So,  the  delicate 
touch,  the  apt  word,  the  finished  English,  the  quaint 
and  quiet  humor  of  Irving,  are  still  there.  The  salty 
breeze  of  Cooper's  sea-stories  has  not  lost  its  savor. 
Natty  Burnppo,  Leatherstocking,  Hawkeye,  the  Scout, 
the  Pathfinder,  the  Trapper, —  the  many-sided  man 
of  Otsego, —  yet  counts  five  in  the  roll  of  manhood. 

And  this  is  why.  October  has  a  thoughtful  way 
with  it.  Pansies  should  be  born  in  October.  The 
woods,  trying  to  remember  the  colored  splendors  of 
the  going  year,  have  taken  fire,  and  yet  are  uncon- 
sumed.  Maple,  poplar,  beech  and  ash  tell  the  story, 
every  one  in  its  own  way,  and  thus  it  is  that  there 
are  "  tongues  in  trees."  With  their  dying  leaves 
they  repeat  the  marigolds.  They  suggest  the  blush- 
roses.  They  rehearse  the  summer-sunsets.  October 
is  a  good  time  for  a  pilgrimage,  and  I  have  just  made 
one  to  Cooperstown.  What  you  can  find  in  a  geo 
graphy  or  a  tourist's  guide,  or  anybody's  Field  Book 
of  anything,  cannot  be  found  here. 

Striking  out  by  an  unwonted  route  from  Richfield 
Springs,  where  people  drink  disagreeable  water  and 
fan  themselves  all  summer,  twelve  miles  to  Coopers- 
town  as  the  crow  flies,  if  he  flies  straight,  you  pass 
little  hamlets  you  never  heard  of,  noted  on  the  map 
with  a  fly-speck  of  a  dot,  as  Cooperstown  might  have 
been  but  for  Cooper  and  his  creations.  There  is 
something  breezy  about  hills,  even  when  no  wind 
is  blowing.  They  suggest  billows. 


202  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

As  long  ago  as  I  hid  "  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans" 
under  the  fat  copy  of  Yirgil  spread  open  before  me 
in  school-time, — Yirgil,  with  a  blessed  "Ordo"  run 
ning  down  the  edge  of  the  text,  the  clew  of  the 
labyrinth  to  take  a  fellow  through  the  dove-tail  ter 
minations  out  into  English  light  and  Latin  sense, — 

o  o 

before  that,  Cooperstown  was  a  Mecca  to  me, —  and 
not  to  me  only,  but  to  thousands.  I  fancied  it  was 
about  a  mile  from  the  Celestial  Gate,  and  stored  with 
countless  wealth.  Thence  carne  the  books  of  birds 
and  beasts,  the  blessed  primers  thin  as  gold  leaf  and 
quite  as  precious, — "price  one  cent;"  "price  two 
cents ; "  "  price  six  cents."  But,  ah !  the  last  was 
magnificence,  at  the  cost  of  a  Spanish  sixpence,  the 
scale  from  a  little  silver  fish  that  had  been  mentally 
taken  to  pieces  ever  so  often,  resolved  into  cents, 
reduced  -to  mills,  and  there  they  were,  all  rounded 
into  the  small  flake  from  the  white  mines  of  Peru  ! 
Since  then  I  have  spent  delighted  hours  before  Audu- 
bon's  Book  of  Birds,  as  it  leaned  up  against  the  wall 
like  a  pier-glass.  Had  the  partridge  began  to  drum, 
nobody  could  have  wondered.  But  never  did  that 
wondrous  mimicry  of  nature  give  me  half  the  joy 
that  one  of  those  bits  of  blue-covered  primers  did, 
with  the  imprint,  "  IT.  &  E.  PHINNEY."  And  here,  a 
while  ago,  I  was  riding  into  Cooperstown  in  the 
October  sunshine  of  a  perfect  day,  and,  passing  along 
the  street,  an  ancient  landmark  of  a  store  caught  my 
eye,  and  across  its  front  was  a  wooden  sign,  like  a 
railway  passenger  with  his  ticket  in  his  hat-band,  and 


"RIVERSIDE"  AND  "LAKESIDE."  203 

the  words  upon  it  were  familiar  as  a  nursery  rhyme. 
It  was  as  if  somebody  you  had  thought  dead  full 
forty  years  ago  should  meet  you  with  the  old  greeting. 
The  sign  was  "in  words  and  letters  following,  to 
wit " :  II.  &  E.  PHINNEY.  The  pack  of  care  and 
time  I  had  been  carrying  tumbled  off  in  an  instant, 
like  Christian  Pilgrim's  knapsack  of  sin,  and  again 
I  was  the  beatified  master  of  a  silver  sixpence.  This 
was  the  place,  then,  whither  the  jingling  treasures  in 
the  pockets  of  my  blue-striped  trousers  found  their 
way,  and  whence,  in  the  old  time,  came  those  thin- 
leaved  tracts  of  boyish  happiness !  The  modern  stores, 
the  fine  old  mansions,  the  grand  hotels,  all  faded  out 
like  a  mirage,  and,  for  the  moment,  nothing  remained 
of  Cooperstown  but  the  old  sign. 

We  passed  an  ancient  church-yard,  where,  like  lambs 
around  the  door,  stood  the  white  tablets  of  the  fore 
fathers.  But  the  slabs  leaned  hither  and  thither,  as 
if  they  would  lay  the  heavy  emphasis  of  marble  Italics 
upon  human  forgetfulness.  And  there  lies  the  dust 
of  the  novelist !  The  living  world  has  closed  around 
the  disused  acre,  but  I  had  found  the  resting-place  of 
him  with  whom,  many  a  year  ago,  by  the  magic  of 
his  story,  I  had  wandered  in  the  wilderness;  who 
had  halted  my  heart  many  a  time  in  hours  of  mystery 
and  danger ;  had  quickened  it  to  exultation  in  the 
triumphing  right,  and  inspired  me  with  a  love  for 
American  scenery  by  forest  and  prairie,  by  valley  and 
mountain  ;  with  an  admiration  for  American  purpose 
and  prowess  everywhere,  that  have  never  perished.  His 


204  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

pictures  were  appeals  for  things  noble  and  lovely,  and 
of  good  report.  He  suggested  no  evil.  He  mossed 
over  no  wrong.  In  all  English-speaking  lands  he 
compelled  recognition  of  the  truth  that  an  American 
could  write  an  American  novel,  that,  owing  nothing 
to  the  old  world,  should  spring  as  naturally  from  the 
soil  as  the  elms  and  pines  of  Otsego.  A  gay  and 
gilded  omnibus  rattled  by,  blazoned  with  HOTEL  FEN- 
NIMORE.  Italics  and  great  capitals, — weeds  un rebuked 
and  the  pride  of  life.  u  So  runs  the  world  away ! " 

The  last  trace  of  the  old  Cooper  mansion  is  oblit 
erated.  Fire  began  it.  Innovation  completed  it. 
Nothing  remains  but  to  sow  it  with  salt.  The  classic 
grounds  have  been  virtually  slashed  with  a  public 
street,  as  a  saber-stroke  seams  and  disfigures  a  noble 
face,  and  houses  stand  about,  and  look  foolishly  at  each 
other,  as  if  they  were  ashamed  of  it.  Even  some  of 
the  old  ancestral  trees,  they  say,  have  been  deemed 
cumberers  of  the  ground,  and  have  gone  up  sooty 
kitchen-chimneys  in  smoke.  Nothing  of  all  this  is 
half  so  wonderful  as  where  the  willing  hands  were 
folded,  that  the  spot  was  not  rescued  from  ob 
livion  ;  and  where  the  taste  had  vanished  that  would 
have  made  a  Leatherstocking  Park,  and  thronged  it 
with  the  creations  of  Cooper's  genius;  embodied  his 
characters  in  marble  and  bronze,  civilized,  savage  and 
sailor,  the  red,  white  and  blue  of  his  stories,  and 
deeded  it  all  to  the  people  forever. 

Then  we  crossed  a  picturesque  ravine,  and  wound 
along  the  base  of  the  wooded  hills,  Otsego's  classic 


205 

water  at  the  left,  turned  golden  wine  in  the  descend 
ing  sun  ;  and,  terrace  above  terrace,  the  city  of  the 
silent  at  the  right.  The  very  water  where  the  canoes 
of  the  wilderness  glided  with  an  arrow's  silence.  The 
very  city  where,  among  the*  sighing  pines,  and  the 
flickering  shadows  blown  about  upon  the  ground  and 
spotted  with  fallen  leaves  by  October  winds,  Cooper's 
monument  stands  forth.  It  is  an  eloquent  piece  of 
work.  Eloquent,  not  so  much  in  what  is  graven  as 
in  what  is  left  unsaid.  No  word  but  COOPER.  No 
name  his  mother  called  him  by.  No  date  of  birth  or 
death.  Why  should  there  be?  In  everything  that 
makes  true  living  he  is  not  dead.  Leatherstocking,  in 
his  fringed  hunting-suit  and  frowzy  cap, —  as  classic, 
every  whit,  as  the  robe  of  the  Roman, —  his  faithful 
friends,  the  dog  and  rifle,  bearing  company,  surmount 
the  shaft.  Emblems  of  Cooper's  works  by  ship  and 
shore  emboss  the  monument  with  brief  biography. 
The  word  Otsego  had  a  meaning  once,  of  salutation 
and  honor.  The  red-man's  courtesy  is  in  order  to-day, 
and  so  let  me  say,  Otsego  to  Cooper ! 

Miles  of  hill  and  dale  lay  between  us  and  rest ;  the 
sun  was  going  down,  and  taking  one  look  more  at 
lake  and  hill  and  sky  and  monument  I  turned  silently 
away.  I  had  come  on  a  pilgrimage  to  what  men  call 
the  Dead.  Eating  salt  at  no  man's  table,  entering  no 
abode  of  the  living,  welcomed  by  none,  I  left  Coopers- 
town,  and  before  many  miles  were  made,  night  fell 
down  upon  all  the  hills. 


CHAPTEE 

* 

CHECKS. 


~Y~YTRIT1NG  of  checks:  I  was  a  passenger  on  the 
V  Y  Cincinnati  and  San  dusky  railroad,  where  the 
conductor  gives  no  check,  but  takes  your  ticket,  looks 
you  over  for  a  second  and  passes  on.  It  is  a  great 
comfort  all  around.  It  saves  you  the  annoyance  of  a 
conductor's  feeling  about  for  some  place  to  stick  a 
label,  red,  white,  blue,  or  yellow  as  a  daisy,  as  if  you 
were  a  package  of  goods  consigned  to  somebody.  It 
always  gives  me  a  bit  of  spiteful  satisfaction  when 
the  conductor  finds  a  hat  without  any  band,  or  a  band 
stitched  so  snugly  that  he  cannot  embellish  it  with 
a  check.  It  delights  me  to  see  him  give  little  jabs 
with  his  parallelogram  of  pasteboard  around  that  hat's 
equator  without  finding  a  place  to  put  it,  and  then 
irritably  hand  it  to  the  passenger  with  a  gesture  of 
expostulation. 

Did  you  ever  watch  a  w^oman  look  for  her  check 
when  the  conductor  demands  it?  She  has  no  hat 
band,  thank  fortune  and  fashion !  but  what  to  do  with 
it  is  a  conundrum.  She  holds  the  representative  of 
money  paid  and  miles  to  ride  in  her  hand  a  little 
while.  Then,  tired  of  that,  she  wedges  it  between  her 


CHECKS.  207 

glove  and  the  palm  of  her  hand ;  or  she  puts  it  in 
her  portemonnaie  or  her  reticule  or  her  lunch-basket 
or  her  bandbox  or  her  pocket.  If  very  primitive,  she 
thrusts  it  in  her  bosom  or  knots  it  up  in  a  corner  of 
her  handkerchief,  as  old  grandmothers  used  to  tie  up 
their  money.  Perhaps  she  gives  it  to  the  baby  for 
amusement,  and  the  youngster  plays  paper-mill  with 
half  of  it.  She  sticks  it  in  a  crack  of  the  window 
for  security,  and  it  slips  down  upon  the  floor.  She 
steps  out  into  the  aisle,  adjusts  her  skirts,  and  makes 
a  dip  and  a  plunge  under  the  seat  for  it.  Rescued, 
she  impales  it  with  a  pin  upon  the  side  of  the  car, 
and  it  jars  out  into  her  lap  in  a  mile.  She  catches 
it,  and  gropes  for  her  basket,  overturns  a  sandwich, 
two  pickles,  a  stratum  of  cheese  and  a  doughnut,  and 
deposits  it  in  the  very  bottom  of  the  geological  forma 
tions.  That  miserable  bit  of  paper  is  the  most  trouble 
some  of  all  her  possessions. 

She  is  glad  it  is  an  "  Indian  gift,"  that  the  con 
ductor  did  not  present  it  to  her  outright,  that  he  will 
relieve  her  of  it  in  due  time,  but  by-and-by  she  is 
sorry  she  was  glad.  There  he  stands,  and  he  wants 
that  check.  She  has  forgotten  what  she  did  with  it! 
She  nervously  examines  her  portemonnaie,  she  over 
hauls  h-er  reticule,  she  feels  in  her  glove,  her  pocket, 
her  bosom.  She  wishes  the  conductor  wouldn't  watch 
her.  She  could  find  it  quicker  if  he  only  wouldn't. 
At  last  she  unearths  it  from  the  big  basket,  smelling 
of  vinegar  and  cheese  and  nutcakes,  and  stained  with 
a  drop  of  jelly,  like  "the  damned  spot"  upon  the 


208  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

little  hand  of  Shakespeare's  monster,  Lady  Macbeth, 
that  would  not  "out,"  and  presents  it  with  a  sigh  of 
relief  to  the  impatient  official.  Nibbled  at  one  end 
and  soiled  at  the  other,  he  tears  it  in  three  pieces, 
and  hastens  along;  and  the  woman  wonders  why  upon 
earth  he  troubled  her  to  keep  it,  when  he  didn't  want 
it  himself. 

Yonder  is  a  young  woman  who  has  traveled.  She 
pins  the  check  upon  her  shawl  the  minute  she  gets 
it,  like  an  order  of  nobility,  and  thinks  no  more  about 
it.  She  does  not  care  the  pin  that  holds  it  whether 
the  conductor  ever  gets  it  or  not.  All  the  timid 
women  and  the  elderly  women  envy  her.  Here  is  a 
man  who  consigns  that  check  to  his  tin  tobacco-box, 
and  snaps  the  cover  together  with  a  click.  Unhappy 
is  he  whose  check  the  conductor  took  from  his  hat 
band  while  he  nodded,  as  even  Homer  is  said  to  do; 
taken  as  was  the  rib  from  Adam,  but  with  no  hope 
of  a  recompense  so  pleasant  as  Eve.  He  wakens  with 
a  start,  throws  up  a  hand  instinctively  to  his  hat,  for 
lie  knows  he  has  been  "  in  the  land  of  Nod,"  feels 
nothing,  whips  off  the  castor,  arid  gives  it  three  com 
plete  revolutions  before  he  is  convinced  that  the  check 
has  utterly  gone,  and  then  falls  to  searching  in  all  his 
pockets  and  around  the  neighborhood,  glances  suspi 
ciously  at  its  inhabitants  to  see  who  took  it,  gives 
the  hat  another  hopeless  twirl,  and  then  waits  help 
lessly  for  the  conductor  that  never  comes  back,  and 
so  the  passenger  escapes  safely  from  the  car  at  his 
destination,  ignorant  what  became  of  that  check. 


CHECKS.  209 

THE    BANK    CHECK. 

Of  all  checks  bank  checks  are  the  pleasantest.  Al 
most  every  boy  has  written  out  one  of  them  for  a  mill 
ion  or  so,  upon  the  Bank  of  Nowhere,  and  put  his  name 
to  it  just  to  see  how  it  would  look.  I  wonder  how 
a  man  feels  who  can  fill  in  a  slip  of  paper  with  such 
words  and  figures,  to  wit,  as  "ten  thousand  dollars  — 
$10,000,"  and  have  some  paying  teller  wet  his  fingers 
and  count  them  out  the  minute  it  is  presented.  It 
must  be  a  warming  sort  of  sensation,  like  a  mustard- 
plaster  applied  to  a  cold  place.  Is  that  why  wealthy 
men  are  called  "warm"? 

Girls  never  do  that.  They  never  write  make-be 
lieve  checks,  for  they  hope  to  live  till  somebody  pens 
genuine  checks  for  them,  and  saves  them  the  trouble 
and  the  —  expense. 

Are  you  ever  made  game  of  by  autograph-hunters? 
Do  they  come  at  you  with  a  pen,  a  pocket-inkstand 
with  a  screw  cover,  and  a  narrow  book  containing 
everybody's  name  "his  mother  called  him  by"?  Are 
you  an  impecunious  poet  or  a  peripatetic  lecturer,  or 
something  of  that  sort?  If  you  are,  then  you  have. 
That  putting  your  signature  to  nothing  is  a  nattering 
business  before  twenty-five  and  a  stupid  one  after  two- 
score.  The  writer  hopes  the  reader's  name  is  not 
found  in  many  autograph  albums,  belaureled,  bedoved 
and  beharped  on  the  covers,  and  gilt-edged,  like 
Orange  county  butter,  because,  as  a  rule,  you  don't 
find  a  name  good  for  much  on  a  bank-check  flourish 
ing  in  an  album.  Whether  or  not  it  is  because  the 
9* 


210  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

owner  is  afraid  somebody  will  steal  the  autograph 
and  put  it  where  "it  will  do  the  most  good,"  I  can 
not  tell. 

It  must  be  pleasant  to  be  able  to  make  a  check. 
It  is  something  like  earning  the  money,  and  then  issu 
ing  the  currency  yourself.  I  am  not  quite  sure  it 
would  not  be  a  luxury  to  put  a  dollar  into  some  bank 
just  for  the  sake  of  checking  it  out.  But  there  is 
always  a  time  in  a  man's  life,  and  it  is  not  in  the 
beginning  of  it,  when  these  slips  of  paper,  even  with 
seven  figures  on  them  besides  the  pair  for  cents,  look 
microscopically  worthless,  and  that  is  when,  in  lan 
guage  more  current  than  classic,  he  is  summoned  "to 
pass  in  his  checks  "  ;  when  the  word  is  "  checkmate  ! " 
and  the  end  comes.  A  man  has  recently  gone  who 
could  have  drawn  a  check  that  would  have  bought 
Louisiana  at  its  old  price,  and  fenced  Rhode  Island, 
and  filled  a  great  State  with  homes  for  the  poor,  and 
founded  a  great  library.  He  dealt  in  hot -water,  boil 
ing  water,  winged  water,  all  his  days,  and  steamed 
with  unparalleled  swiftness  to  a  fortune  so  stupen 
dous  that  he  reckoned  his  life  not  by  years,  but  by 
millions.  He  checked  out  a  church  and  a  university 
as  if  they  had  been  trifles.  But  then  he  was  a  long 
time  on  the  track.  He  bought  and  sold  speed  as  if 
it  were  a  commodity,  but  lie  could  not  "  make  time  " 
himself. 

TRUNK    CHECKS. 

There  is  a  jingle  as  of  dull  bells,  and  a  man  enters 
the  car,  dragging  after  him  a  frame  hung  with  geog- 


CHECKS.  211 

raphy  tumbled  to  pieces,  picked  up,  graven  upon  bits 
of  brass,  and  hung  upon  leather  straps.  And  the 
man  says,  "Check  y'r  baggage!  "  Your  thought  climbs 
a  flight  of  garret  stairs  somewhere,  and  stands  by  a 
little  calfskin  trunk  with  the  hair  on,  and  your  name 
lettered  with  brass  nails  on  the  cover,  "  A.  B.  C." 
That  was  all  the  check  anybody  had  thirty  years  ago. 
Fancy  a  man — fancy  two  hundred  men — looking  for 
"A.  B.  C."  in  a  through  baggage-car !  Put  a  brass 
ornament  on  that  home-body  of  a  trunk,  and,  calf  as 
it  is,  it  will  reveal  powers  of  going  abroad  that  are 
marvelous.  It  will  travel  like  a  thing  with  brains, 
in  a  sort  of  intelligent  manner,  from  Maine  to  the 
Florida  reefs,  and  there  you  will  find  it  waiting  for 
you,  chafed  as  to  its  epidermis,  weak  and  jingling  of 
a  hinge,  perhaps,  but  then  there. 

How  many  men  have  themselves  checked  through 
a  line  of  policy,  regardless  of  friends,  foes  or  conse 
quences  !  Put  brazen  labels  on  their  heresies  and  set 
them  going! 

BLUE    CHECK. 

In  Ohio  I  saw  a  girl  in  a  span-clean  checked 
apron  that  went  around  her  waist  with  a  string; 
the  old-fashioned  sort,  made  of  numberless  and  un 
divided  checker-boards,  with  the  little  blue  and  white 
squares  alternating  with  mathematical  precision.  The 
sight  of  that  apron  would,  have  taken  you  back  to 
an  older  wearer  of  a  similar  garment,  who  brought 
apples  from  the  orchard  in  it,  and  white  maple-chips 
from  the  woodpile,  and  picked  peas  in  it  upon  a 


212  SUMMER-SAVORY. 

pinch,  and  gathered  eggs  in  it  from  the  haymow, 
and  spread  it  smoothly  and  decorously  over  her  lap 
when  she  sat,  and  her  knitting-work  reposed  in  it; 
and  sometimes  a  cat,  marked  like  her  best  Sunday 
comb,  would  assay  a  slumber  upon  its  checkered 
existence,  and  be  whisked  off  in  a  second.  You  have 
seen  that  apron  flung  over  its  owner's  head  like 
"the  knitted  cloud"  of  modern  times,  when  she 
went  to  the  next  neighbor's.  That  apron  has  wiped 
away  the  tears  of  your  childish  sorrow,  when  they 
ran  down  your  face,  and  your  clamorous  tongue  ran 
out  at  each  corner  of  your  mouth  between  the  sylla 
bles  of  lamentation  and  licked  them  in!  You  see 
where  she  laid  it  \vhen  its  work  was  done.  You  saw 
where  they  laid  her  when  her  work  was  done. 
There  is  a  whole  system  of  mnemonics  in  those  blue 
and  white  checks. 


So  says  the  reader  who   has  come   bravely  on  to 
this  paragraph,  and  check  it  is. 


kt 


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